Today, Microsoft announced that it's going to be supporting adding exFAT to the Linux kernel. If you're unfamiliar with exFAT, it's the file system that's the successor to FAT32, used in Windows, SD cards, flash drives, and so on. As Microsoft puts it, it's the reason that so many devices work as soon as you use them in a "laptop, camera, and car".
Microsoft wants the Linux community to be able to use it as well, so it's releasing the spec for exFAT to the public. In fact, you can read through all of the documentation right now. One big advantage over FAT32 that you'll find is that it supports larger files. Being that FAT32 is a 32-bit file system, it can't support files over 4GB. exFAT is 64-bit, so it doesn't have the same limitation.
Support for FAT32 is pretty much everywhere, mainly because between it, exFAT, and NTFS, FAT32 has been around the longest. It makes sense for the newer exFAT to be available in more places.
Microsoft said that it also wants a Linux kernel with exFAT support to be included in a version of the Open Invention Network's Linux System Definition, eventually.
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