Tuxera signs IP deal with Microsoft

Tuxera has announced an "extensive co-operation" with Microsoft. Tuxera, the company formed by the NTFS-3G developers, has signed an Intellectual Property Agreement with Microsoft and joined its exFAT Programme. Tuxera says that this will allow it, as the first independent software vendor in the programme, to offer exFAT drivers.

exFAT is a proprietary file system which was developed by Microsoft as a replacement for FAT and FAT32 for flash memory drives. Support for exFAT was added to Windows in Windows Vista SP1 and has since been selected as the standard file-system for the SD Card Association's SDXC cards. Tuxera now has access to the exFAT specifications, the source code to Microsoft's implementation and access to testing and verification tools.

Tuxera's CTO, Szabolcs Szakacsits said he looked forward to working with OEM customers saying "Adding exFAT into our existing NTFS product portfolio is the logical next step". The exFAT driver is aimed at OEM manufacturers and will be available for Linux first, but no details of any open source plans for exFAT were disclosed.

Tuxera offers NTFS-3G under a dual proprietary/GPLv2 license which allows it to also sell a commercial version. Mikko Välimäki, Tuxera's CEO added "As an open source company, we feel excited to sign an intellectual property agreement with Microsoft". Tuxera has also joined Microsoft's Interop Vendor Alliance.

(djwm)