Microsoft announced that it will support exFAT storage in the Linux kernel! Good news for cross-system storage

Li Zi from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

exFAT is a file system developed by Microsoft for flash memory.

Your USB flash drive, SD card, mobile phone and other storage devices can store large files of more than 4G, largely due to it.

However, exFAT has always been proprietary, and Microsoft holds many patents. Therefore, if you want to install it on a Linux system outside of Windows, you often need to use third-party tools, which may cause instability.

Now, Microsoft has announced support for adding exFAT storage to the Linux kernel. This is another fierce public display of love:

The team also appealed to the entire Linux community, asking everyone to work hard to submit code so that a Linux kernel with built-in exFAT support can be created as soon as possible.

As soon as the news came out, programmers on Hacker News were excited, and the popularity of the topic rose by 200 points in 7 hours:

A netizen (@tambourine) said:

I can't believe we finally have a cross-platform read-write disk format.

Originally exFAT only supported Windows and Mac, but now it finally supports Linux, making the transfer of large files between the three major systems no longer a problem.

Some friends also called out, "Open NTFS as well":

Opening exFAT to Linux

exFAT , which refers to Extended File Allocation Table, is a storage format released by Microsoft in 2006. As an evolution of FAT32 , it also has a name called FAT64 .

Compared with its predecessor FAT32, it can store large files over 4GB; compared with its other predecessor NTFS, it is more friendly to flash memory.

As mentioned at the beginning, many devices such as SD cards and USB flash drives can be connected to computers, cameras, and cars nowadays, thanks to exFAT. In addition, as media files become larger and larger, exFAT becomes more and more important.

In the past, Microsoft did not make this superior technology available to its competitors, but the relationship between Microsoft and Linux has gone beyond friendship and evolved into love.

Microsoft said it would make the technical specifications of exFAT public.

In this way, we can encourage friends in the Linux community to contribute code, put exFAT into the Linux kernel as soon as possible, and let the Linux community use it with confidence.

Microsoft also said it hopes to revise the Linux system definition of OIN (Open Invention Network) to a new version. Once the contributed code is adopted, it will be protected by defensive patent commitments from more than 3,000 members and licensees of OIN.

Speaking of OIN, it is a Linux protection organization founded by IBM, Red Hat and other companies in 2005. At that time, it was just a patent pool. Members in the pool authorized each other's patents.

Later, hundreds of companies such as Google and Oracle joined and built a huge patent library to protect members from patent attacks from outside. Now there are more than 3,040 members.

Microsoft joined OIN in October 2018 in order to protect Linux in the patent war.

This time, the cooperation between exFAT and Linux will also be protected by OIN.

One netizen (@zamalek) commented:

They want to put the patent into OIN, which is the most important point. I should not be wrong, this thing will become the most powerful patent in the OIN army.

Then, more electronics/software manufacturers will also join OIN under pressure. After all, sharing files on physical media and UEFI basically use FAT.

This will cause headaches for patent trolls (companies with little physical business that rely mainly on patent infringement lawsuits).

Of course, Microsoft’s love for Linux is not a one-day thing.

Keep loving

In 2014, Microsoft began to open source .NET , making it cross-platform on Linux.

In 2016, Microsoft open-sourced PowerShell and extended it to Linux.

In April this year, Microsoft even brought the Visual Studio Code code editor to Linux.

In addition, after joining the Linux protection organization OIN, Microsoft cross-licensed more than 60,000 patents to members of the organization.

However, there are still viewers (@pedrocr) who question Microsoft's love for Linux:

If I can install Office on a Linux machine, I will believe that Microsoft loves Linux.

exFAT technical specification document:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/exfat-specification

Techcrunch report:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/28/microsoft-wants-to-bring-exfat-to-the-linux-kernel/

VentureBeat report:
https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/28/microsoft-wants-its-exfat-file-system-in-the-linux-kernel/