From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: by yocto-www.yoctoproject.org (Postfix, from userid 118) id B4075E00B6C; Sun, 11 Oct 2015 06:17:16 -0700 (PDT) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on yocto-www.yoctoproject.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW, WEIRD_PORT autolearn=ham version=3.3.1 X-Spam-HAM-Report: * -0.7 RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW RBL: Sender listed at http://www.dnswl.org/, low * trust * [212.227.126.131 listed in list.dnswl.org] * 0.0 WEIRD_PORT URI: Uses non-standard port number for HTTP * -1.9 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1% * [score: 0.0000] Received: from mout.kundenserver.de (mout.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.131]) by yocto-www.yoctoproject.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8FC3E00B4D for ; Sun, 11 Oct 2015 06:17:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.159.8] ([80.43.50.149]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue005) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0LfWo9-1aN49w3PQX-00p740 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 2015 15:17:13 +0200 References: <10D57FBA9FD7C14FB49EE17590E1AF94011F907751@svr-exc-03.intern.wipotec.de> <561807B5.2010206@reliableembeddedsystems.com> <561943BE.40608@reliableembeddedsystems.com> To: yocto@yoctoproject.org From: Chris Simmonds Organization: 2net Message-ID: <561A6159.4070402@2net.co.uk> Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2015 14:17:13 +0100 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.2.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <561943BE.40608@reliableembeddedsystems.com> X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:z55daGAxb35bvaeRpzINqJ1PH/7VAwjCpdNCze6ZiMK/AJZ9q6m cDtaf19CBo48qDvMZECuJx1baqz6oM8gIOa53VrM8PI72k3+1B9TKQq95Ir2NkXHTl5NYPP Ec6WpKFmcIu0beq5NKILhv0G1BOaaVI9Vm2JNwF2RBJRIv/OaUqH8hrVxefwe9geEIOjBZ5 s02tWmneFqkxJdCcieeSA== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:QoBrdaWpbyI=:2qLhY6cjHXTHLTvtXZvbkZ A2Bo6tgyQ8y8qDlgxg9PMku95fQbwNYD5sg3TEB2ntFNN79TvvaU81KAo/fX2hwOssKCA3TU9 zdrW0t2x1oGI57/fyMbfsfpSJRFg+PwfXapCWzQ042HEZaB7pMhTLa5JZbfPtlq/sjT7t/n9h 5PHvWm8HQZhcWxfsr+LtDCRNIomGuKcATFz1bg5laCXRawgK2YZbtM4jnBhDxhDbLbCmdAvx+ 5SsyCCoYOMDaQCL1e+5tDSLLOil+1S7YTxzQ53/k3kZs8UTaduiQhnnCAywM0RSyb4JHQ9APs gCNvMBr6DzXD0RyC20fU6/xbojTXwLh7eYE0DkV5Fhw1wYJOwXTIbmk52jboKcuEdsw5nwnwH u1dgAB/25hB71omSSqbMw0zW21oCPbKnxd3Dsr8EIgukJSmIIUeOpEKdaudBOUG0FjfajjeOt BVvrI3tErLWDI5Atu1RiEViWRf2VWhcPj7h376+6ul6YO1yqX+H6blKs6oiGYVQmuiLI9UcuV xgm+4Uk70mZy+OzuMkoRnmiMr3AkpfSSjcsHd1mfnH6xNItAe7JW9DlGEfIzpSw4SV+y7t79D vSGRoMGpp/oO4zanorNHsG/NGo44r1eNMlE1eGQTpGi1JT/3BFZ/uYTuCtc5plux5qSIudEBE ck8l2EK4brtgpk6RvGhE5sCXhciEUmvc0WhrYxg3zpYgTjMuhlnmtUbpKoATN7EHrXfkLiUQi qa9IRoYVd+w8Wvmn Subject: Re: VFAT patent EP 0 618 540 X-BeenThere: yocto@yoctoproject.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.13 Precedence: list Reply-To: chris@2net.co.uk List-Id: Discussion of all things Yocto Project List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2015 13:17:16 -0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi On 10/10/15 17:58, Robert Berger wrote: > Hi > > On 10/09/2015 11:20 PM, Ayoub Zaki wrote: >> TI Socs Boot Rom code can use Vfat but does not necessarly need it as >> Bootloaders (spl, u-boot) can be loaded directly from Raw MMC/eMMC. > I just discovered this recently. Something like: > > sudo dd if=./u-boot/MLO of=${DISK} count=1 seek=1 bs=128k > sudo dd if=./u-boot/u-boot.img of=${DISK} count=2 seek=1 bs=384k > > So even my made up scenario where you would need vfat on the first > partition does not hold anymore. Usually the need to include vfat support driven by the desire to read/write removable media such as SD cards and USB mass storage devices. If you want interoperability with certain legacy operating systems vfat is the only option. > > ... but ... > > what about the patent and the on-chip ROMs of SoCs from Ti and Freescale > (hmm NXP? or whoever bought them lately). Maybe the SoCs are affected > since they are able to load stuff from vfat, even if we don't need to > use this feature anymore. Not a problem for two reasons. First the patent only applies to fat32; you can do anything you like with fat16. The TI romcode only uses fat16, I am pretty sure. Second, even with fat32, the patent is only concerned with updates to the namespace, hence so long as the romcode does not have the ability to create files it is also OK. Note that you can't get round the patent just by mounting vfat partitions read-only because the driver still has the ability to make new files. There was a patch for the vfat driver which removed the code to create or modify directory entries, but it seems to have got lost in the mists of time. > > Regards, > > Robert > > ..."Never express yourself more clearly than you think." - Niels Bohr > > My public pgp key is available,at: > http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x90320BF1 > > -- Chris Simmonds, Consultant, 2net Ltd http://www.2net.co.uk +44 (0)1962 869003