Porting *NIX/open source tools on Windows has been a long-time tradition to introduce quality open source softwore to Windows users. Or allow *NIX users to work on Windows.

Personally, I do like Ext3 because you can mount it r/w on many other OSes.

However on a SD card you might not want r/w all the time, or journaling.

VFAT has many disadvantages compared to Ext3, Ext4 and NTFS. It is vulnerable to fragmention for example. Ext3 supports journaling; VFAT doesn't. Ext2 doesn't support journaling. Ext3 journaling cannot be put off. Ext4 supports putting journaling off. So while Ext4 port for Windows doesn't exist right now I think Ext4 will be a good FS to port to Windows. Although Ext4 has to prove itself in the industry it is not beta anymore and its based on Ext2/Ext3. An Ext4 port for Windows has to be very well tested. One can also think of succesors of JFFS2.

Well, the nice part of Ext3 is that if you don't want journaling, you can switch it off. So for flash cards, default ext3 with no journal, or even just Ext2 would work just fine.

No, you cannot put journaling off in Ext3. It becomes Ext2 then. Thats a subtle difference with Ext4. If you put journaling off in Ext4 it remains Ext4.

This discussion brings a, possibly naive, thought to my mind.

If I remember rightly, a lawsuit stopped Microsoft integrating Explorer into Windows, in order to prevent unfair competition in the browser market.

Is it time (if legally possible) to give the file system the same "free" status?
I.e. "define" the file system of a computer to be something outside the OS.
E.g. as part of a "special" software layer between the hardware (or hardware abstraction layer) and the OS.
And with the requirement that any supplier of a (future) OS must release the "OS-file-system interface" to third party developers.

Arguments :
File sharing , interacting computers with different OS:s , parallell OS:s on the same computer : all quickly growing.

There might slowly grow a "separate" market for file systems.
If so, developments of OS-file-system interface standards might come.
( Wouldn't this make some hardware drivers less OS specific? )

Or am I missing the point(s) ?

a better comparison would be a network protocol (smb/cifs/windows network vs samba) or file format (ms office vs odf).

the web browser issue was one of using a virtual monopoly in one area to potentially create one in another via bundling (buy one, get the other free).

thing is that at the time the browser was not the real issue, it was server tech. netscape had their server, microsoft had iis.

both sides had in theory dirty hands, but netscape at least avoided giving one part away to sell the other (browser with custom support for value adding additions at the server end).

microsoft had already virtually taken down one competitor via bundling, novell.

novell did the stupid thing of concentrating on the server alone, while allowing microsoft to handle the client side via windows. microsoft then put client side support for their own server (exchange) into windows, and that way made the setup a near drop in replacement for novell's product. and microsoft marketing could make a sell on one stop support, making the customers sys admin life easier.

now the real weight of microsoft rests on two things, ms office and exchange. and thats why they fight hard against openoffice and google's services.

basically, ms office and exchange in combo is like a RAD environment for cooperative solutions.

Thanks , tso , for filling me in !
I realise that my starting point was "off side".

But I, being an OS newbie, would still like to know if my file system musings made any sense ??

heh, im not sure how much of its 100% accurate.

Nice recall.

We were so much older then. We're younger than that now...

I was in Livermore, CA back then and was eventually part of the class action when that law suit expanded. About 6 or 7 years later, when I'm back on the right coast, I get a check for something like $170 based on some convoluted formula...

The law firm made out OK though. They were from Walnut Creek as I recall. The whole thing was dropped in their lap by some dude from Socilito who was pissed off and just walked in off the street.... So the story goes.

I think we ought to petition to get Hans Reiser out of prison and go and work at Microsoft, then he can go and kill all their lawyers

On a less frivolous note, I presume that most people know that the inflight entertainment systems on planes are usually linux based? NorthWest's is from Panasonic. It'd be interesting to know therefore whether Panasonic have lots of patents on installing (linux-based) entertainment systems in vehicles/planes and whether these challenge the MS ones?

The problem for EU was that Microsoft had a monopoly position in Windows and used this to bundle MSIE leaving out competitors as a choice during or right after installation. Same for WMP.

You could argue the same for Windows and FAT. There are 2 problems: 1) it takes very long till a court decides on such while meanwhile the complaining corporation has to survive... where is DRDOS, Corel, Novell, Sun, Netscape, Real now? 2) you can go on and on suing for such.

The 'FAT' patents are specific btw. They're about specific functions of FAT. It is not that you cannot use FAT without these functions; that is possible.

Personally, I believe we'll slowly but surely see more OS diversity as we move towards VM (Java, .NET, HVM) and the renting of capacity running on such ('cloud', Web 2.0) and 24/7 Internet connectivity. Meanwhile, Microsoft enters other markets. And in some of these markets they're not showing excellent customer support (XBox debacles). Its just that their competitor's offerings aren't so good either.

As for TomTom, to quote someone from another forum: "Get your new Tomtom Light! Fat-free, zero sugar!"