Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

See also update 4 in the request about other potential legal issues.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Indeed... :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_36yNWw_07g

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

In the IGG campaign there is now one claim for the Jolla tablet 'StarterKit' perk (kit of 20 tablets). Neat!

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Make a "custom version" for some customers is not easy. I doubt you can go to Microsoft and say "hey I want exfat on X devices but we are not sure how many devices yet". My guess is they have to buy licences in "packages" of X thousand not per/unit.

In this case I think they have to choose exFAT or not exFAT on all devices since it low volumes we talk about.

But for me most important question is what stable filesystem works best on optimized for flash memory without corruption. If there is a good open alternative I personally prefer that. But question is if there is... So maybe exFAT actually is best solution even I personally hate SW patents...

Btw... Even if its not fully comparable. But lets look at the desktop market. Even if a company will not use windows in the organisation you have to buy Dell/Lenovo/HP computers with Windows OS junk preinstalled. That sucks bigtime too. But what is the alternative? There is probadly zero companys selling bussiness computers without windows crap preinstalled... Atleast in sweden. (Yeah I know there is system72 in US)

My point is whatever you choose you never get rid of the facts that you have to pay Google, Microsoft or some other big corporation whatever you choose. Business as usual...

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

that has been atleast a week?

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Most common filesystems work well enough on flash. The benefit of F2FS is reducing the burnout, but if you don't write to it actively - it shouldn't be a major issue.

Actually for businesses it's much easier to buy computers without Windows junk preinstalled. Dell, Lenovo and all others offer computers without OS or with Linux to corporate customers. But when it comes to individuals they start causing your problems.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

How do we know that exFAT is optimised for flash storage if the details are a trade secret? Because Microsoft says so?

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Zoostorm sells extremely affordable Windows-free desktops in the UK (to consumers and businesses). You can get them from ebuyer.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

That's just not possible as the StarterKit perk has been added on 27/11.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Ugh...that's crusty...why do people do this?

Anyway, I was under the impression that reformatting an SD card isn't exactly a technical feat. People in general, tech-heads or no, should know about what they're buying and how to use it. This applies for anything.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

No idea. But I wouldn't be surprised if SD consortium does construct hardware with some benefits for exFAT. I really hope F2FS will be completed soon, but so far Samsung doesn't seem to rush it.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Jolla responded, but just acknowledging the request: https://together.jolla.com/question/...#post-id-67564

Hopefully they'll say something more detailed on this matter later.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

What do people here think a good compromise would be then?

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

I think the "let people buy their own exFAT" solution is a good one. That's just me though.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Yeah, I agree. It's the best compromise and if it's feasible (legally and etc.) should be the direction for them to take.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

I meant to chime in in a similar tune. Remember the now almost forgotten days when Macs were the bees' knees? It was also the time when floppies ruled the world. All new floppies you bought came pre-formatted with FAT. If you put such a floppy in your Mac, the first thing it would do was asking you to "initialize" the floppy. I see no reason why Jolla could not do the same with exFAT-formatted SD cards.

@Vertu, that is my answer to your question too.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

If ever possible (what I definitely not believe!) the buy-your-exFAT would be the best. But -as said- this is not the way it will be :(
Even this may not be liked by a lot:
we/you should also recognize that the Jolla is not a niche product, sold only to 'nerds'. If they would have aimed at that market only we would not have this device at all.
So I am not happy with that M$ license, too. But will accept Jolla to want to claim their SDXC compatibility for advertisement reasons.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

I didn't even think of that. That seems more realistic than "buy your exFAT."

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Think again.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Yes, more realistic and no (big) problem for 'us'. But think at the non-tech-savy people that want to use that card as overall exchange medium. Put it in your Win device and getting asked to format (again)?
FAT32 (as the overall file system) has the 4GB file size limit. :(

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Yes, that'd be perfectly valid solution.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Windows can read external drives (SD cards incl.) formatted in NTFS, right? Linux can as well.

Bam.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

I think Jolla could come out and clarify all the legal limitations and constraints about it. So far they didn't say anything.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Some other devices don't read NTFS. For example cameras. But that's really besides the point. I don't know what cameras can read besides exFAT. This whole sick situation is the result of corrupted market capture and lock-in pushed by MS into the SD consortium. That's why it's so irritating that this is fueled further with the money given as crowdfunding.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

So could Jolla just format a >64gb microsd to fat32 and be done with it? Does Windows dislike fat32 on microsds over 32gb?

I do get the point about the portability problem... what if one already had lots of content in that exfat card, it would be annoying to say at least to have it be formatted again... this would be a big minus on the Jolla tablet for the average consumer.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

FAT32 can't hold files larger than 4 GB (not uncommon for video).

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

To clarify, he meant as a general sharing medium. I don't think cameras would count.

Couldn't agree more.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

And reading is somewhat different from writing!

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Jolla would have to format it in a format that can handle that capacity (NTFS, F2FS, EXT4, XFS, perhaps BTRFS).

Perhaps this is just me, but I always backup data from an external medium on another hard drive/my computer anyway. It's proven to be a good habit, backing up everything.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Thats not the point. The use case is different:

1. User buys "an SD card" (doesn't know differences)
2. User uses it on his laptop and other devices
3. User now wants the files from SD card on Jolla, too
4. Jolla can't read it because its exFAT
5. Jolla tablet suggests to re-format...

The suggestion that Jolla should format the card to a file system that's hopefully compatible to Windows, OSX and a number of cameras, ebook-readers and other gadgets only works if the Jolla tablet is the first device a user will plug the card into after he bought it. That will very likely not be the case.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

It's a normal practice for many cameras which suggest exactly the same thing. So it shouldn't be uncommon for the user to see such behavior. If it's not the first device, user will back up files, format the card and copy files back.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Playing devil's advocate, I don't think that most end-users (the blunt-brained ones that are being used as examples by the pro-exFAT folks) would own cameras, by virtue of owning smartphones and shopping around for tablets.

That said, when are we gonna stop assuming that end-users are complete borons? There do exist smart non-techies, yeah. Formatting an SD card is a trivial task, and there's about 15+ search engines just in case one cannot figure it out on their own.

Edit: m-o-r-o-n changed due to Puritanistic speech filter

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

We may have a different understanding of the word 'trivial'.

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/SDCard doesn't even cover half of it and is way beyond what most consumers would want to touch.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

Really? That might have been the common method to formatting an SD card back in...2008? Excuse the hyperbole, but you don't even have to do all that.

Gparted is easy to use, plus you can easily choose which format you wish to implement on the SD card, including NTFS.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

It doesn't support UDF though for whatever reason. Same thing with KDE Partition Manager.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

This is all fine and dandy discussing alternative file systems but it doesn't change the fact that to support the SDxc standard it has to be ExFAT. If you want interoperability then that is the only solution.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

We've already established that's not necessarily the case, hence why we're talking about alternative file systems.

EDIT: Just noticed something. You omitted "officially support" and replaced it with just "support." In that case, I do agree. What we're discussing is a non-hackish workaround for that little conundrum.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

What do you mean by "support"? Advertise support during the sale? Hardware supports physical cards which are larger than 32 GB. And OS supports them as long as you don't use exFAT. So if that's all that matters Jolla can avoid getting in trouble by not advertising SDXC support. Isn't it the case with the handset already?

There is no solution which has complete interoperability except for FAT32 (at least today). exFAT is not universally supported either. So whatever filesystem you would chose besides FAT32 today, it would be already not interoperable fully. So the question is, what is the best option to chose if you need to use files larger than 4 GB. I guess it would depend on the use case. Camera users might care about it being exFAT. Others not, since they aren't limited by cameras' restrictions and rather limited by not being able to use exFAT somewhere else.

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

You haven't established anything. You and shmerl have come up with filesystems that have even less support than ExFAT, that aren't even suitable for solid state devices to maintain your dogmatic nonsense.

By 'support' I meant in every sense of the word, official and not. Jolla can not claim SDxc support in any way if they do not support ExFAT.

How are Jolla going to advertise that you can use SDxc cards but not officially and not wth the filesystem that SDxc cards mandate for interoperability?

Re: Jolla at Slush 2014
 

So let them not claim it. Would it prevent SD consortium from coming after them if Jolla users would use 128+ GB cards formatted with F2FS or whatever? If that's the case (i.e. SD consortium wouldn't care), then it's perfectly fine.

Let's reiterate - this discussion is not about whether exFAT is useful for some uses or not - you already said, it's useful for camera users at least. This discussion is about changing the stretch goal from one which involves paying for exFAT to something else. Since either way some users won't get all that they might want. And there might be other ways to enable exFAT for those who really need it, as was already pointed above.

So, why should they advertise it? I see no need altogether. They can write that Sailfish doesn't support SDXC by default, but optionally users can buy such support by purchasing a license to use exFAT.