NTFS driver (was: ReactOS GPL vs. proprietary drivers)

[Jan Kratochvil]

Hi,

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:41:19 +0200, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Jan Kratochvil wrote:
...
> > NTFS has no meaning as a standalone filesystem - there are better GPL
> 
> Why not? NTFS has all the features that other Linux filesystems have and
> even more. Why couldn't it be used as a standalone filesystem? 

As its data structures are undocumented. And it IMO does not make sense to fork
its documented derivative out of it (there was already one with unhappy end).


> Let me tell an example, the (Linux) NTFS driver supports transparent
> compression.

OK, it is a feature missing in current GPLed (incl. specification) filesystems.
It still makes more sense to me implementing the feature to existing GPL
filesystem instead of implementing the same feature to NTFS with uncertain data
structures. But we are talking about free software - do what you get paid for.

...
> IMHO today definitely but AFAIK your country will become part of the EU
> next year and the patent laws are just discussed nowadays (it doesn't look
> too promising).

Compatibility reasons should permit the use case even by these illegal laws.
Fortunately these laws do not apply now and the future is not known (at least
for some people).



Regards,
Lace

-- 
Jan Kratochvil; http://www.jankratochvil.net/