 Tuxera, the Finnish company behind open-source file system
NTFS-3G, has announced a confidential intellectual-property deal with
Microsoft, under which it will be permitted to carry on distributing
its open-source NTFS product and to offer new exFAT drivers.
Tuxera said on Wednesday that it is also joining the Interop Vendor Alliance, a Microsoft-led collaborative forum for interoperability with Microsoft systems.
"The
confidential Intellectual Property Agreement is basically about patents
and giving us access to some Windows source code," Tuxera chief
executive Mikko Välimäki told ZDNet UK. "ExFAT is part of the
forthcoming SDCX standard for flash cards, and we'll be selling our
driver to OEMs for devices like cameras."
ExFAT is an extension of Microsoft's FAT file system, and is considered by Microsoft to be complementary to NTFS, the standard file system in Windows.
"We're
talking to Microsoft about an open-source exFAT driver, but that's not
covered by the agreement. We cannot sell end-user proprietary drivers,
we can only sell exFAT on Linux to OEMs at present," Välimäki said.
The
Tuxera chief executive added that the company has a dual-licensing
policy with NTFS, with its proprietary version having features tailored
and optimised for specific purposes that aren't in the GPL'd
open-source version.
When asked whether there were
patent issues with NTFS, Välimäki said: "Microsoft has never publically
said anything about patent issues with NTFS... Our open-source NTFS
driver has been available for 10 years, and our commercial driver for
two."
"We'll be licensing our Linux NTFS under the
GPL, and we have an agreement with Microsoft. If you're a user, you
don't need to worry about Microsoft. We'll deal with them directly," he
added.
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