Re: IA64 port

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 06:23:09AM +0100, Tristan Gingold wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 07:48:29PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> [...]
> > AFAIK, there's no standard specifiing FAT, only a few implementations that 
> > act
> > de-facto as a "reference".  Because of this, it is up to us to decide what 
> > is
> > "standard" and what is just an OS-dependant oddity.
> 
> There are spefications from MS, eg:
> Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT32 File System Specification, 
> rev. 1.03, December 6, 2000,
> (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgen.mspx)

Ok, I have downloaded the document without accepting their license (which is
completely legal where I live), and had a look it (or at least the part of it
that can be deciphered from MS-Office internal format).

I can't legally quote it, but it seems the requirement of case insensitivity
is present.  I really think it is completely broken to describe a filesystem
structure saying, not how the data is organized, but how your implementation
must present it to the upper layer.

It is simply out of scope.  Consider there was a document describing ext2 that
said /dev/zero, if present, must output an endless stream of 0xff.

> or even ECMA 107.

Also, note that neither of these qualify as "standards".  The first is a
Microsoft internal document, the second is just a rubber-stamp organization.

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)