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by fragmede 2248 days ago
The modern answer is exFAT. August last year Microsoft opened up the specifications, and pledged that it won't be patent encumbered[].

How well an operating systems has a separation of concerns between interface and implementation really has very little (unfortunately) to do with business incentives. Even if the Linux kernel had perfect separation of concerns, there's no way to force Microsoft or Apple to support it in their products.

Not to mention the problem with standards: https://xkcd.com/927/

[1] https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat...

1 comments

Amazingly, the web folks seem to be doing OK on this front. They often manage to miss the xkcd#927 trap. What I see (admittedly the simplified public version) is more like:

- Here's a standard that kind of works and everybody is using it.

- Hey, we invented this cool new thing that isn't part of that standard but people seem to like it! (XHR, Canvas, ...)

- OK everybody let's put that into the standard as well so we can all agree on how it works. Thanks!

There was no way to "force Microsoft or Apple" to make a web browser, either, and yet they both did, and made it part of their operating systems.