asked 2015-01-30 20:13:28 +0300
OK people,
it seems Jolla got mislead by a small minority (?) wanting no exFAT support in the Jolla tablet. This question is just here to show Jolla that people out there would love to have officially supported and licensed exFAT support with sdxc cards.
answered 2015-01-30 22:05:54 +0300
This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.
This is an answer for anyone to vote up if you feel like leaving exFAT support out was the right choice. It's nicer to vote a counter-argument up than spend karma on downvoting someone. Let's see how much of a minority we really are...
In order for this answer to serve some purpose let's collect facts/opinnions/arguments about why exFAT is not needed. I'm making this a wiki, so feel free to edit this list.
exFAT is not needed because:
Please read the comments since the author made this comment a wiki which anyone can change, the votes should not be trusted. The comments, if you can wade through them, outline the changes and arguments against this answer.
That exFat license can be crucial to someone with big SD-cards and limited computing skills and I don't see the evil in this. Microsoft invented the system and holds patent to it, no evil in that imho. Also with droping the exFat support you are not only bringing the free filesystems to the table, you are limiting the exFat from users. And if I have understood things right from different posts on TJC, MTP is really hard/impossible to get to work on MacOS. Also there at least used to be some topics on how the at least two SD-cards went foobar on Jolla phone because the use of free filesystems on 64gb SD-cards messed up something internally on the card.
avhakola ( 2015-01-30 23:11:05 +0300 )This is just crazy. MTP does not work on Mac, even on Linux you'll have to figure it out by yourself. So please, be trutful in your arguments. Also, not all file systems are good for removable flash-drives. Some of them will wear those cards out prematurely because most of them are designed for completely different purpose. It takes more than "free" to be a good choice! Maybe something like F2FS might do, but again, it's not compatible with Windows, Mac or regular devices using SD-Cards. As for "non-crucial" licenses, this will effectively prevent interoperability with great amount of different devices, which is likely be a deal breaker for many. For them it's definitely not "non-crucial" license.
MSH ( 2015-01-30 23:32:12 +0300 )Whether free or non-free is better depends on who you ask. In this particular case it comes down to everyone's personal preference, where the functional tradeoff being interoperability between devices and binary blob + more expenses to Jolla.
And if I'm not completely mistaken the lack of exFAT isn't breaking device interoperability completely. SDHC cards (32GB and less) will work just fine on SailfishOS as FAT32.
@avhakola, you're right. However, I have a hunch that users with limited computing skills and big SD cards are a small minority in this community.
@MSH, I am being truthful to my arguments. For me MTP works on Linux out of the box (Debian stable 7.8, Gnome 3.4.2). OSX indeed seems to be an unfortunate case with MTP.
Okw ( 2015-01-31 00:50:26 +0300 )@Okw, yes I also think less skilled + big SD card owners are in minority in this community, but this exclusion makes sure they will be so also in the future and 100% of the time hand their money for Apple, Microsoft or [insert your random Android device manufacturer here] instead of maybe choosing Jolla.
avhakola ( 2015-01-31 01:04:47 +0300 )MTP has worked on most modern GNU/Linux distributions out of the box for some time now. It's not Jolla's fault that fruit company's Fisher-Price computers don't work with MTP.
nthn ( 2015-01-31 01:25:47 +0300 )answered 2015-02-02 15:22:37 +0300
a) This is an issue only for cards > 32GB, so not the majority of cards right now. b) If you use the FAT32 file system, even on cards >32GB, you will be fine and able to swap cards between Windows, Cameras, and Jollas. Windows can read FAT32 cards >32GB just fine, it just can't format them.
a) That is not the argument. Most cars run on petrol right now, lets ban electric cars!
b) You will not be fine using SDXC cards formatted with FAT32 because many devices will not accept FAT32 on SDXC cards. My Olympus camera for instance asks to reformat the card if I use a FAT32 formatted SDXC. It seems a fair thing to ask given that the SDXC standard mandates ExFAT and it mean I could record HD video >4GB in size.
Windows canformat SDXC cards with FAT32, just not using the default disk formatting UI. In any case, you probably should not be using the Windows formatting tool anyway but using the SD Associations card format tool which is available at https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html
aegis ( 2015-02-02 17:05:26 +0300 )@aegis: your simile would make sense if:
you had to pay a fee to charge an electric car;
the electricity outlet were proprietary and only the cars of a specific vendor could charge on a specific outlet so anyone wanting to serve electric cars would have to pay out of their ass for all the million different 'standard' outlets (hey, this reminds me of something!);
exFAT support actually were banned - in fact you will just have to install it yourself if you need it (which is literally as simple as installing a package).
The point I was making was that the community has decided to not support the new standard because the old one is apparently good enough. It isn't.
You also seem to be to be as uninformed about electric car charging points as you are about SD card standards. There are multiple incompatible car charging standards and some vendor specific ones also. Eg. Tesla who have their own network and BMW/VW who have their own standard. But that wasn't the point I was making.
aegis ( 2015-02-03 23:49:59 +0300 )Then what is your point? My point is that if standards are shit, you shouldn't support them, ideologically.
nthn ( 2015-02-04 18:56:35 +0300 )answered 2015-02-06 11:07:24 +0300
Ok, level of the discussion here seems slightly overheated. Been following it from the very beginning and now some comments (maybe some of mine as well, sorry) have left constructive field. I personally do think we need to support as many standarts on Jolla devices as possible. But since the decision had been made and all of us have enough time to tell what we think, may be it's time to stop. What we have to do now is not up/down vote each other, ruinning each other's karma (not only here on TJC, but in a more common sence), but to find a decision making the subject of the dispute irrelevant.
My suggestion is for Jolla to develop sort of a "PC Suite" — I know there were multiple questions on this point. So, telling us it is underway and is going to have all the necessary 'wired' or 'ota' communication features working "out of the box" would be really helpfull. And we as a real community, not a curseing and abusing crowd, should help Jolla to find the best decisions for any difficulties occured, create a list of needed functionality, etc. Some of this has already been done here. So please, Jolla team, it's time for you to step in and quit this discussion ruinning our (mostly helpfull) community.
answered 2015-02-02 11:57:34 +0300
The Jolla apps are half blind to the sdcard anyway. Let's spec a fs support for a bigger sdcard which the Jolla apps can not make use of and give money to friggin Microsoft in the process. Sounds like a plan! LOL
Asked: 2015-01-30 20:13:28 +0300
Seen: 2,714 times
Last updated: Feb 06 '15
For what purpose? Both MTP (USB cable) and SSH (Wireless, USB cable) work independently of what filesystem is used.
drcouzelis ( 2015-01-30 20:27:12 +0300 )and also you got better batery and screen? No thank you.
virgi26 ( 2015-01-30 20:32:11 +0300 )No thanks - insert Micro SD, format , forget it's there is good enough for me especially if it means bypassing a redundant "standard" by Microsoft.
vandersmash ( 2015-01-30 20:42:39 +0300 )I don't understand why we aren't getting more standards out of the box? There are enough n00bs out there who just want to use their microSD cards on their Windows pc's. Not everybody is techinical or uses Linux. For the ones that do not want exFAT, just dont use that format. It's simple as that.
I voted for this, exFAT support on Jolla please!
HtheB ( 2015-01-30 20:54:13 +0300 )@HtheB because this standards are not free
virgi26 ( 2015-01-30 21:00:27 +0300 )@virgi26 and how much does it cost for a single license?
HtheB ( 2015-01-30 21:03:19 +0300 )I am fairly sure you cannot purchase exfat licenses one-by-one. Hence, impossible to say what the cost would be.
juiceme ( 2015-01-30 21:28:22 +0300 )I don't understand why people are so against the exFat licence even when it was already promised to us because of the strechgoal. It is nothing away from the FOSS-crusaders, but one more option (which you will never use because of evil corporations) so why you have to ruin the experience for all the others?
avhakola ( 2015-01-30 23:15:18 +0300 )Well, for starters, It costs money that can be better spent elsewhere.
juiceme ( 2015-01-30 23:21:22 +0300 )In this pool : https://together.jolla.com/question/68539/poll-file-systems-support-on-sd-card-for-jolla-tablet/ the majority has chosen the option (answer) without exFat support. So Jolla has listened and respected the opinion from the major active part of the Sailfish OS community.
rcolistete ( 2015-01-30 23:22:30 +0300 )And what we got with this trade of saving license fees? Little bit more batterylife that will last from few minutes to few hours depending on your usage? I call that a loss.
avhakola ( 2015-01-30 23:24:29 +0300 )@avhakola, read : https://together.jolla.com/question/78734/official-announcement-jolla-tablet-returns-to-indiegogo-with-updated-tech-specs/ which cites : "Further updates: the battery size has been slightly increased to 4450mAh (previously 4300mAh), the display is fully laminated, and we've added gyroscope and compass sensors. However, proximity sensor will not be included in the Jolla Tablet unlike previously mentioned."
rcolistete ( 2015-01-30 23:34:33 +0300 )@avhakola I am happy with what we get; better battery life and better screen. That is lot better than exfat support for SD card; If you desire that you can easily install it yourself unlike the new HW enhancements
juiceme ( 2015-01-30 23:40:09 +0300 )Were those improvements added because of the dropped exFat support or by something else happening behind the scenes?
avhakola ( 2015-01-30 23:47:47 +0300 )I am fairly sure it does not hurt to have extra $300000 in the budget that you otherwice would have to have shelled out for filesystem licenses.
juiceme ( 2015-01-30 23:59:31 +0300 )Don't know if the tablets go for the 300000 dollars flat payment or the phone/PC type volume based payment. On one of the topics it was asked if people were ready to pay 2 euros for the support asume the volume price is around that 2 euros and tablets has been ordered what - 10000? Even if we assume they would order 20000 of those, it is still only 40000e, much less than that 300000.
avhakola ( 2015-01-31 00:41:27 +0300 )I'd give up morpog, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
The ExFAT issue is really quite simple. It's the standard for SDXC cards. If you want interoperability with Windows, Mac, cameras like most DSLRs, GoPro etc then it's essential.
If you're only a Linux user, don't want to transfer photos from your camera on the move, don't ever take your card out of your tablet, don't want to read sdxc cards from other devices and you're happy with the limitations of fat32 or whatever linux only filesystem Jolla decide to use then you don't need exFAT.
I think it's a real pity that the second set of users with such limited usage cases have completely buggered it up for users who expect more.
aegis ( 2015-01-31 09:20:27 +0300 )https://together.jolla.com/question/68539/poll-file-systems-support-on-sd-card-for-jolla-tablet/ I counted fast around 300+ people asking for no exFat support and the tablet has something between 6000 and 8000 orderers if I have kept my count correct during the campaing. This makes around 5% or less of people who bought the device crying for droping the strech goal and possibly ruining the experience for others - and Jolla submited to their will.
avhakola ( 2015-01-31 12:41:45 +0300 )