Text 17737, 79 rader
Skriven 2007-05-05 09:01:12 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Did Microsoft just patent sudo?
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From: mike <mike@barkto.com>


More innovation from the boys in Redmond...

http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com/2007/05/did-microsoft-just-patent-sud
o.html

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Did Microsoft just patent sudo?

Holy crap, I think they did. Here's the patent for UAC:

>>
A computer such as a network appliance executes an administrative security
process configured to run under an administrative privilege level. Having an
administrative privilege level, the administrative security process can
initiate administrative functions in an operating system function library. A
user process executing under a non-administrative privilege level can initiate
a particular administrative function that the process would not otherwise be
able to initiate by requesting that the administrative security process
initiate the function. In response to a request to initiate a particular
function from a process with a non-administrative privilege level, the
administrative security process determines whether the requesting process is
authorized to initiate the particular administrative function based on
information accessed in a data store. If the requesting process is authorized,
the administrative security process initiates the particular administrative
function. In this manner, the administrative security process facilitates
access to specific administrative functions for a user process having a
privilege level that does not permit the user process to access the
administrative functions.
>>


Patent 6775781
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=
%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6775781.PN.&OS=PN/6775781&RS=PN
/6775781


Does that sound like sudo to you? Does to me. If you look at sudo's manpage,
you'll find a link to this site: The History of Sudo.
http://www.sudo.ws/sudo/history.html
What can this site tell us? Plenty. For instance,

>>
Sudo was first conceived and implemented by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer
around 1980 at the Department of Computer Science at SUNY/Buffalo. It ran on a
VAX-11/750 running 4.1BSD. An updated version, credited to Phil Betchel, Cliff
Spencer, Gretchen Phillips, John LoVerso and Don Gworek, was posted to the
net.sources newsgroup in December of 1985.
>>

1985, huh? And when did this Microsoft patent happen? It was filed in 2000.
Well gee, that doesn't make sense. How'd they get the patent? It certainly
falls under the category of "obvious" if there's prior art such as sudo.

What makes this whole thing funny, though, is something I saw a couple days
ago. Head over to Builder-AU and listen to Peter Watson from Microsoft. He
says,

>>
User Account Control is a great idea and strategically a direction that sort of
all operating systems and all technology should be heading down
>>

Excuse me? Does he really believe this is all Microsoft's great new idea?

In the end, this seems like a patent that Microsoft will hold up and say "we
have a patent and Linux is violating it!" They won't ever sue on it though
(just leave the threat hanging to scare away potential users), because then
they could have the patent revoked. It's better for them to just wave it
around.
===

  /m

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