The community is at work, I see. Not only is there a prior art search going on regarding three Microsoft patents asserted against TomTom (details here), but now Andrew Tridgell has posted some code on LKML. You'll never guess what it does? I'll let tridge tell you:

When this option is enabled the VFAT filesystem will refuse to create new files with long names. Accessing existing files with long names will continue to work.

In a perfect world, there would be no bullies, no software patents, and no one would need to write code like this. But here in the real world, with our very practical feet firmly planted on terra firma, aren't you glad you have some very clever friends?
Back in July of 2003, in the very first interview I ever gave, I was asked if I thought Microsoft was behind the SCO attacks on Linux, and while I said back then that I didn't know, I felt the issue was bigger than the players, that it was a culture clash between proprietary software and FOSS, and I expressed confidence that no matter who was involved, FOSS had a wonderful edge:

So, what do you do about a bully? If he's bigger than you are, you certainly try to outsmart him. There's no lack of brains on our side, happily.

Did I nail it, or did I nail it?

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