Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756465AbZGHQTf (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:19:35 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754251AbZGHQT0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:19:26 -0400 Received: from earthlight.etchedpixels.co.uk ([81.2.110.250]:58213 "EHLO www.etchedpixels.co.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753785AbZGHQTZ (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:19:25 -0400 Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 17:18:48 +0100 From: Alan Cox To: James Bottomley Cc: tridge@samba.org, Martin Steigerwald , Jan Engelhardt , OGAWA Hirofumi , Theodore Tso , Rusty Russell , Pavel Machek , john.lanza@linux.com, Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, Dave Kleikamp , corbet@lwn.net, jcm@jonmasters.org Subject: Re: CONFIG_VFAT_FS_DUALNAMES regressions Message-ID: <20090708171848.21633768@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> In-Reply-To: <1247069202.4159.212.camel@mulgrave.site> References: <19013.8005.541836.436991@samba.org> <19026.38137.63807.427511@samba.org> <200907072356.51553.Martin@lichtvoll.de> <19028.3736.892828.352905@samba.org> <20090708110451.1092afa7@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <1247066878.4159.153.camel@mulgrave.site> <20090708163736.0f98e7e0@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <1247069202.4159.212.camel@mulgrave.site> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.1 (GTK+ 2.14.7; x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1687 Lines: 43 > > That represents loss of functionality for loss of risk (a trade off). > > Precisely ... that's what this whole thread is about. Accepting the > lawyer's argument that this patch eliminates the risk of suit under the > FAT32 patents, does the loss of functionality it comes with represent an > adequate reward? You are missing the point still. Ship with problem feature enabled risk high features high Ship with problem off but in source risk lower features low Ship with it ripped out risk lowest features low So the only two logical positions to operate are low feature/lowest risk and high feature/high risk. So if you decide not to ship the feature it'll get ripped out entirely. > OK, so we disagree on whether providing source code constitutes > contributory infringement. We disagree whether there is zero risk involved. If there is any risk then the logical position if you've decided not to enable the feature is not to ship source for it. > OK, so rather than get into a what my lawyer says versus what your > lawyer says argument, can we get back to the technical aspects of this > and leave the lawyers retained by the vendors to sort out what they > actually do? Sure and I'd say the technical issues are simple - Tridge's patch breaks stuff - Tridge's patch masquerades as vfat but isn't. We can fix those by only creating short names (but honouring existing long ones) and by not claiming its vfat. Alan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/