Licensing NTFS - Or Why Doesn't Mac OS X Natively Support NTFS

David Weintraub (apparently) - 04:12pm Dec 11, 2007 PST
via email

> After all, Apple ought to have built full NTFS support directly into Mac OS X,
> as they did for FAT32; one could argue that with NTFS for Mac OS X installed,
> your Mac behaves the way it should have all along.

I bet Apple really would have loved building full read/write NTFS
support right into each Mac. Unfortunately, Microsoft considers NTFS
proprietary technology and has several patents on it. I'd love to see
some of the patents: "Patent #23948223: A file system that doesn't
allow you to have a file path longer than 250 characters without
choking". Or, maybe: Patent #23948213: A file system that takes
forever to allow a user to delete a file".

But, it doesn't matter, you want to be able to read and write to an
NTFS partition, you have to get Microsoft's permission first.

I wonder what Microsoft's terms for an Apple license would be (Steve
Jobs has to directly ask Bill Gates for an NTFS license in person, and
then say "Mother, may I?").

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com