David G. Miller wrote: > John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org> wrote: > >> David G. Miller wrote: >>> > It wouldn't surprise me if NTFS was encumbered by some sort of >>> Micro$oft > intellectual property claim. This would be sufficient >>> to cause Red Hat > to not build their kernel with it even if all it >>> takes to make it work > is to enable the feature in the kernel build. >>> >> >> Debian's as paranoid as anyone, but it ships NTFS. >> >> Additionally, I've never heard any claims regarding HPFS, and as I >> came to Linux from OS/2, I think I'd remember such. And, RH has >> never, to my recollection, shipped HPFS either. >> >>> > See one of the many flame wars over MP3 or some other IP >>> encumbered > technology as to why RH won't include it (and risk >>> getting sued). >>> > > Cheers, >>> > Dave >>> > > I vaguely recall that IBM wanted to open source HPFS at one time and > was told by Microsquish that they wouldn't allow it. Funny that IBM > went one better and open sourced JFS instead. > I'm in kind of the same boat as you since I was an OS/2 user before I > switched to Linux. I think the HPFS information was from a discussion > as to why IBM couldn't open source OS/2 as a means of continuing > support. Remember, we're talking about the same Microsquish that has > attempted to patent the FAT file system. I'd be very surprised if > NTFS wasn't IP encumbered. Debian tends to be very paranoid as to > technical features and stability but they don't have the financial > exposure that Red Hat has when it comes to infringing IP. > > Cheers, > Dave > Could it be that Red Hat doesn't enable NTFS in their kernels because they simply don't want to support NTFS? -Greg