Isn’t it About Time We Say Goodbye to FAT?

There are few feelings quite like the experience when the time comes to build a new machine. Ahh, the sense of something brand-new, and not to mention the fresh circuit board smell! But while our machines may be faster than ever, and their capabilities mind-blowing, the truth is that deep-down, some of the technologies being used aren’t so new. Take the BIOS, for example. It’s been around for a while, but it’s still found on most PCs.

But there are some technologies that a few people hope to see perish, and lately, that tech seems to be the FAT filesystem. Although FAT has seen a few iterations, it first saw the light of day in 1980, where it started off as a 12-bit version and today sits as a 32-bit file system. And aside from the fact that the file system’s filesize limit is 4GB, it’s served us quite well over the years. But as a recent lawsuit between Microsoft and TomTom proved, it might be a good idea to say sayonara, at last.

Who’s really pushing the idea of giving up on FAT is the nonprofit Linux Foundation, and while it might be easy to discredit their claims given they’re pro-Linux, some good points are made. This lawsuit proved that, well, “Microsoft is still Microsoft”, and despite their claims for software openness, most people can see through the bull. I’m not totally against FAT, since it does work in pretty much any operating system, but an open standard for removable media sure wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“The technology at the heart of this settlement is the FAT filesystem. As acknowledged by Microsoft in the press release, this file system is easily replaced with multiple technology alternatives. The Linux Foundation is here to assist interested parties in the technical coordination of removing the FAT filesystem from products that make use of it today,” he wrote. “Microsoft does not appear to be a leopard capable of changing its spots. Maybe it’s time developers go on a diet from Microsoft and get the FAT out of their products.”