Subject: Re: fedora official ntfs support

[Marc Schwartz]

On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 10:06, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Marc Schwartz wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 09:35, William Hooper wrote:
> > > >
> > > > NTFS is documented,
> > > >
> > > > 	http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ntfs/index.html
> > > 
> > > http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ntfs/help/about.html
> > > " Microsoft hasn't released any documentation for NTFS. These documents
> > > have been pieced together partly by carefully reading all the SDKs and
> > > Windows help but mostly by reverse-engineering the filesystem."
> >
> > Right, and under most proprietary software licenses, reverse engineering
> > is a prohibited activity, placing one in breach of the agreement. 
> 
> Again, where and how? There are many countries where reverse engineering
> is completely legal, in others implementing something based on reverse
> engineered documentation is also legal (while reverse engineering is not).
> Etc, etc, etc.
>  
> > Hence, another litigation risk for RH/FC.
> 
> Even if the softwares aren't distributed in the prohibited countries? 
> Or Fedora isn't an internatial project? E.g. the Translation Project
> suggests so.
> 
> 	Szaka


Geez Guys,

RH is a U.S. company operating under U.S. law. Microsoft is a U.S.
company operating under U.S. law.

If Microsoft sues RH, under whose jurisdiction do you think that a civil
trial would take place?  Tasmania?

Get over it. It is unlikely that RH would risk being engaged in the
distribution of such things. The company's solvency, its employees and
its shareholders' investment would be placed at risk. In the end, so
would Fedora.

As I said, you have the option of downloading the components from other
sources or using another distribution.

You are beating a dead horse. One that has been dead and cold since RH
8.0.

Marc