Re: Shades of SCO saga
For you, me, and others of the technical calibre communing here, fine. For the other 99% of users, that would just result in a lot of support calls when the user can't read the card they inserted, or can't read it when they take it to another device. Asking users to install foreign file-system support on their PCs isn't going to work either.
The *smart* thing (ah, there's my mistake right there) for the various device makers to have done would have been to make an industry-wide decision to support something like EXT4, FlashFS, whatever in their devices (cameras, media players, phones, tablets, etc) and merely provide a driver install for that particular filesystem. MSWindows does have an "installable file system" capability, it's been there probably as far back as MSWin NT 3.x. It wouldn't be any different than the bloated and overbuilt driver packages they want you to install now, and people manage to make that work no problem. And once it's installed for one device, you can read flash/SD/USB from anyone else that uses the spec.
But that would have required the consumer electronics industry to be something other than lazy, chickenshit cowards.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
