Samsung Properly Open-Sources exFAT File-System

[erendorn]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

Nope.
Code license is about the code. Patent license is about what the code do.
The two are completely separate.

[benalib]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

not everyone is american
it's still legal to use a US software patent in the majority of countries without paying a penny to M$
and for US citizens , the law does not sue particulars for private non-commercial use of patented technologies

[c117152]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

I'm no lawyer so I can't be too sure, but I think the answer here is No. I think Microsoft exFAT's patents still apply even if there's an open source implementation of them in circulation. That's to say, if you use it, you're the one who is going to get sued by Microsoft, not Samsung.
But then again, it's probably dependent on where you are in the world and how much of a legal team you can afford.

[Sonadow]

exFAT is considered a standard-essential patent and thus must be licensed under "FRAND" ( fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms, Samsung could sue Microsoft in the case it denied the license.

And Microsoft has every right to revoke the license if Samsung does things which are not permitted under the licensing terms they negotiated with MS over, whatever they may be.

Just like the Conservancy can bar organizations from distributing GPL-ed software for non-compliance, Microsoft can do the same with organizations that do not respect its licensing terms.

FRAND does not give the licensee the right to do whatever they want with it.

[newwen]

Dream on.

Microsoft still holds the exFAT patents. Samsung licensed them for their own use only. Im not surprised if Microsoft revokes Samsung's patent license for the exFAT driver, thus making it illegal for anybody to download and use Samsung's driver source code.

exFAT is considered a standard-essential patent and thus must be licensed under "FRAND" ( fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms, Samsung could sue Microsoft in the case it denied the license.

[newwen]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

Only if it were released under GPLv3. In that case Samsung would have to pay Microsoft for everybody

[Sonadow]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

Dream on.

Microsoft still holds the exFAT patents. Samsung licensed them for their own use only. Im not surprised if Microsoft revokes Samsung's patent license for the exFAT driver, thus making it illegal for anybody to download and use Samsung's driver source code, since Samsung clearly did not get Microsoft's approval to open their driver.

plus im damn sure that whatever the licensing terms for the exFat patents are, royalty-free dissemination is definitely not one of them.

[newwen]

In a very quick comparison of their 1.2.4 source to the leaked one, it seems they removed all comments in the process...

This would violate this, from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.

Doesn't it? I doubt that Samsung engineers work with that stripped down version.

[Krysto]

Does this mean whoever uses this won't have to pay Microsoft for their own FAT patents anymore?

[RealNC]

In a very quick comparison of their 1.2.4 source to the leaked one, it seems they removed all comments in the process...

This is to show their support to open source folks, I guess.