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Date:   Tue, 9 Jul 2019 04:21:36 -0700
From:   Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
To:     Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>,
        Valdis =?utf-8?Q?Kl=C4=93tnieks?= <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu>,
        Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
        linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        devel@driverdev.osuosl.org
Subject: Re: Procedure questions - new filesystem driver..
Message-ID: <20190709112136.GI32320@bombadil.infradead.org>
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 <20190709045020.GB23646@mit.edu>
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On Tue, Jul 09, 2019 at 12:50:20AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> How have you dealt with the patent claims which Microsoft has
> asserted[1] on the exFAT file system design?
> 
> [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/mtl/exfat-licensing.aspx
> 
> I am not making any claims about the validity of Microsoft's patent
> assertions on exFAT, one way or another.  But it might be a good idea
> for some laywers from the Linux Foundation to render some legal advice
> to their employees (namely Greg K-H and Linus Torvalds) regarding the
> advisability of taking exFAT into the official Linux tree.
> 
> Personally, if Microsoft is going to be unfriendly about not wanting
> others to use their file system technology by making patent claims,
> why should we reward them by making their file system better by
> improvings its interoperability?  (My personal opinion only.)

How does
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-entire-patent-portfolio/
change your personal opinion?