Bonum Certa Men Certa

Ingesting Microsoft Traps: FAT and Restricted Boot

Eating the bait like it's candy

Sweet tooth



Summary: Acceptance of notorious vectors for patent extortion and denial of booting for free operating systems

Several years ago Tuxera signed an obscure Microsoft deal and began promoting Microsoft tax in Linux. "Tuxera is still pushing Microsoft products and patents into Linux," says a reader to us.



"Further," he adds, "it is injecting them *as closed source* into Linux"

According to TomTom, this will be trouble. Even TomTom is exiting this trap. This new promotion of Tuxera says "Tuxera announced a new FAT filesystem for embedded Linux- and Android-based devices claimed to deliver faster data transfers than previous FAT implementations. The Tuxera FAT technology offers improved application responsiveness and power savings, while providing features including fail-safe operation."

This is not news, it is rehashed PR. Tuxera and Paragon do this all the time because new version are out, advancing Microsoft file systems at the expense of Linux ones. Over at Michael Larabel's site, another exFAT booster is shown:

A Linux developer has released a native Linux kernel module for implementing Microsoft exFAT file-system support within the Linux kernel. This is different than earlier exFAT Linux modules that were implemented via FUSE in user-space.

Appearing on GitHub is a new exfat-nofuse project. This is a Linux non-FUSE read/write kernel driver for the Microsoft exFAT file-system.


This should not be embraced, it is a patent trap. A lot -- if not all -- Linux and Android patent deals that Microsoft signs involve FAT. The OIN told this to us.

Speaking of Microsoft traps in software, there is also UEFI restricted boot, which Debian and other freedom-respecting distributions are shunning (for UEFI shunning by Debian see [1, 2, 3]), excepting lesser-free derivatives like Knoppix or Ubuntu (on the Red Hat camp there is Fedora).

One reader told us: "There still is some conflation of Restricted Boot and UEFI. Have the UEFI people even begun steps to undo that?"

"Here is one example," he says, pointing to Slashdot where not OpenBSD but FreeBSD is again being used to advance the UEFI agenda. To quote: "Microsoft has implemented secure boot for Windows 8, using cryptographic keys for authenticating the kernel that is being loaded. This means that any other operating system looking to load itself on a secure boot-enabled Windows 8 system has to also be able to authenticate itself."

FreeBSD plays along:

FreeBSD will soon support secure boot, as per a report from itwire. Most new computers that come pre-loaded with Windows 8 have UEFI secure boot enabled which makes it difficult to install other operating systems. Some GNU/Linux distributions have found a workaround and are able to run on Windows 8 machines. However, this will be the first time a BSD derivative is being developed to support secure boot.


This is not good. Restricted boot need to be antagonised, not caught up with. The same goes for FAT, which is technically inferior to what Linux already offers and definitely helps Microsoft engage in racketeering against Linux and Android.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Extortion is a Crime, Even If You're Based in Another Continent and Work for Microsoft
reported to British authorities
 
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, Planet Ubuntu, Anti-Linux FUD, and Microsoft SPAM
It's not easy to altogether avoid take articles these days
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: "MBA Tear" and Slop ('AI') as Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: "Convicted Felon and MElon Trade Insults" and Europe Snubbed by US Again
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2025: Microsoft XBox Bracing For More Mass Layoffs, Climate Disaster, Fake 'Money' Tokens From US President
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/06/2025: Vanishing Cultures and MElon Implosion
Links for the day
We're in 6/6 Now, Almost Halfway in 2025
2025 was probably the best year for us
South Americans Are Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
We're hardly even "Cherry-Picking" or conveniently singling out one South American nation
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part III: Data Protection Failures, Just Like at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Just less than a decade ago we showed that the EPO had illegally shared staff data with third parties
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 05, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 05, 2025
Pushing Microsoft's Proprietary Trash/Trap as "Open" and "Linux" (Windows is 'Linux' Now?)
Maybe it's time to just stop saying "FOSS". The people who use that term are promoting Microsoft.
Slopwatch: Comparing Linux to Vermin, Attacking BSD With LLM Slop, and Helping Microsoft Demonise Linux/OpenBSD/SSH Over Weak User Passwords
Microsoft must be laughing its arse off, seeing how a bunch of Serial Sloppers (no skills, no comprehension, no integrity, no creativity) and slopfarms use Microsoft LLM to flood the Web with anti-Linux FUD
Links 05/06/2025: US Poised for Another $2.4 Trillion to Debt, Cops Want GAFAM Kill Switches
Links for the day
Links 05/06/2025: First US Spacewalk 60 Years Ago, GNU Octave 10.2.0 is Out
Links for the day
Scandinavia Saying Goodbye to Microsoft
The Danes have had enough of Microsoft
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in Bangladesh, According to statCounter
Windows isn't growing, it's going away
Nat Friedman Had Left Microsoft GitHub Exactly One Week Before Matthew Garrett Sent His First SLAPP (Which Was an Empty Threat, He Was Abusing the Legal System of Another Continent to Terrorise Critics Who Had Just Unearthed Major Microsoft Scandals)
And it was likely talked about by his lawyers around the exact same time Nat Friedman was packing up
Gemini Links 05/06/2025: Loop Earplugs Review and ANS Forth
Links for the day
Armenian Adoption of GNU/Linux
Russian influence in Armenian must be worrying to Microsoft
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part II: Turning a Once-Respected Patent Office Into a Circus and Laughing Stock
It's not legal, but administrators who don't care about the law and don't fear the law would just go ahead and turn things to junk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 04, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 04, 2025
Slopwatch: Mindless Slop Pieces, Fake Images and Text, Linux FUD on the Cheap
spewed out by Microsoft-controlled LLMs
Links 04/06/2025: Workers' Strikes, Sudan Exodus
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day