Bug 868069

The problem is caused by the fact, that util-linux correctly recognize exFAT file system, but the implementation of exFAT is not present for legal reasons.

openSUSE is an Open Source software collection, and does not contain any patent encumbered software or software covered by a restrictive license.

exFAT is both patent encumbered and requires a restrictive license from Microsoft.

That is why openSUSE cannot contain exFAT support.

According to the legal department, asking to install patent encumbered package from third party source and providing a link is a law violation as well.

You can install exFAT packages with an uncertain legal status from the Internet, or you can purchase licensed third party exFAT implementation (if such third party will support openSUSE).

The only thing that can be improved about it is the error message.

Sadly as Standa said there is nothing we can do from legal PoV. If we put there howto workaroundit we would be "helping" you to break a law. So this is CANTFIX from our side. As bugzilla does not have this resolution I am closing this as WONTFIX.

"Sadly as Standa said there is nothing we can do from legal PoV."

He said you can improve the error message. That would at least let the user know what's happening, why it won't mount, and that it is a missing driver due to licensing issues. If the user puts the drive in, have device notifier say why it can't mount, like "missing driver" or "exfat is a proprietary partition".

No, we cannot add any message that can be interpreted as instruction to install exFAT driver (and violate intellectual properties).

The only thing that could be done, is an improvement of the message itself.


Instead of the verbose and complicated message, the first what user should see, should be technical description of issue in native language:

An error occurred while accessing '59.0 GiB Removable Media'

unknown filesystem type 'exfat'

The rest is useful only for debugging and makes the problem hard to understand, and additionally, it is not translatable to other languages.


Which desktop you are using? KDE?


The error report is a chain of report reports from all tools that process mount:


An error occurred while accessing '59.0 GiB Removable Media', the system responded:
From KDE?

The requested operation has failed:
From Qt?

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /run/media/ill/9C33-6BBD:
From udisks2: udiskslinuxfilesystem.c: handle_mount()

Command-line `mount -t "exfat" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid" "/dev/sdb1" "/run/media/ill/9C33-6BBD"' exited with non-zero exit status 32:
From udisks2: udisksspawnedjob.c: udisks_spawned_job_spawned_job_completed_default()

mount:
From warnx() from glibc via util-linux: mount

unknown filesystem type 'exfat'
From util-linux: mount

Only the very last part of the message is useful for ordinary user.


Re-assigning to udisks2 maintainer and posting to the upstream Bugzilla: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89520

Then it should be probably assigned to KDE/Qt maintainer, as it also adds text to the error message.

OK. Legal problems were resolved, and the original bug does not appear any more.

The possible error message is still over-complicated, but it is an upstream issue. (Well, the upstream bug is still not handled.)