What is Digg?158 Comments
- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -7/+245sudo mv /evil-things/software-patents.list /dev/null
where they belong - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -6/+137"Now if only i knew what sudo was, i could support the war against microsoft."
Easiest possible explaination: SuperUser DO (do something as root/a super user).
Note: this was invented in/around 1980. Congrats Microsoft, it only took you 27 years to catch up. - diggsIt, on 10/12/2007, -9/+114sudo kill microsoft
- zlintux, on 10/12/2007, -3/+83I don't usually make fun of people's names, but is one of the inventors really named "Wang Gang"?
- IzeasGT, on 10/12/2007, -3/+77It's this, basically: http://xkcd.com/c149.html
"I'm the admin, do what I say." - shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+54in the GUI in most Linux systems, if you run a graphical application which requires administrator (aka root) access then likely you will be prompted for your (or the root users) password... this is also sudo-ing (its a verb now :) it is allowing that one program use super user privileges. this is what i think the digg submitter is alluding to.
- sabrebutt, on 10/12/2007, -8/+48don't forget to mv microsoft.bin
- EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+44UAC -- claim #1 -- the present invention is carefully designed to persuade a multiplicity of computer users to throw a multiplicity of laptops out a multiplicity of windows through repeatedly stopping all activity to ask said users if they really intended to do what said users really intentionally just did.
- Sharkee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41Sudo make me a sandwich...
Still makes me laugh - donjaime, on 10/12/2007, -3/+39MS patent was filed in 2000. If they were going to do anything with it they probably would have by now.
And legally they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. sudo has been around for a long time.. - neko, on 10/12/2007, -6/+41I don't think you can really compare the greatness of sudo and the UNIX user model to UAC.
sudo is something --I-- prefix a command with if I want to grant it rights to muck with my system. If I don't do this, and the program tries something it shouldn't, it will just fail.
With UAC, if a program tries to muck with your system, you get the popup. This is probably to deal with all the existing win32 apps that expect to be able to crap all over your system at will. It also means a lot more popups. - macoafi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+30sudo's frontend, gksudo, pops up in little boxes like that when you try to run something like Synaptic or install a package you got somewhere.
- martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28Let's face it, the patent office gives out patents with little or no due diligence. They also have little or no insight into what is truly inventive and what is superlative. I might as well patent red pills instead of bothering to patent an actual medicine. Once I have patented red pills, white pills, blue pills, and striped pills, I will have about the entire drug market wrapped up.
But why think small? I suspect no one has yet tried to patent the patent system itself. I will work on some flowery language, get it approved, and the hold the patent office's feet fire until I make sur I can have some nice cut ($100?) for each patent filed! - kodek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28@bigtomrodney:
"Sudo (superuser do) allows a system administrator to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root or another user while logging the commands and arguments."
http://www.gratisoft.us/sudo/
(Official Sudo site) - psychohistorian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19There should be a website dedicated to just document patents with "prior-art". I bet there will be as many pages as the patent website.
- pyromithrandir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Not to mention the patent was filed in 2000...
- scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20They didn't "just" do anything... August 10th 2004
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18They'd be nearly 30 years too late anyway.
- bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18kdesu and gksudo though are actually prefixes to the command in the launcher if you look. They do no automatically pop up when something asks for root, nor should they. It should be a conscious decision to allow a program to even ask for root.
- GregR, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Only MS could obscure a reasonably simple concept with such a convoluted explanation.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Edit: I need to learn to read. Digg me down :'-(
- corevette, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17here is google patents page for this patent: http://www.google.com/patents?id=DLQSAAAAEBAJ&dq=Patent+6775781&ie=ISO-8859-1
and
http://www.google.com/patents?id=70UVAAAAEBAJ&dq=Patent+6775781&ie=ISO-8859-1 - Olivaw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Ripping off other's ideas and calling them your own isn't exactly a new concept for Microsoft. DOS was just a ripoff of CPM ( back in the Z80 days), which was in turn a simplified single user UNIX. Windows 3.1 was an obvious rippoff of the X windows system , icons, DOS windows (Xterm) and all. The idea of making it a single user operating system or that it ran on 8086 did not make it some new gee wiz invention.
How many bazillions do you think Gates has made off other peoples (or universities) intellectual property? - coolwalking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15You don't know what /dev/null is do you?
Unless your "microsoft" binary uses this parameter format...
microsoft file-to-move-this-binary-to
(fscking Digg cuts off any text after "lesser than" symbol, wtf?) - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@DigsIt
We'll definitely need a -9 for this zombie! - bigtomrodney, on 10/12/2007, -17/+28Actually I believe su itself is "Switch User" as you can su to any user. Passing no user name argument to it will default to root. So sudo is "Switch User DO"
- safiire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11People who don't understand Unix are are bound to reimplement it.
In like 20 years Windows will catch up to Unix, and we'll all be using some insane Open Source version of Plan9 or something. That was a joke. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Most software patents (something like 99%) have prior art. Unfortunately the system makes it much more difficult and expensive to get patents invalidated than it does to achieve them (lookup MS and FAT).
The patent office has a 'If you can't see any, we can't see any' policy with respect to prior art.
The system is simply corrupt and has no virtue left. The endless defenders of the patent system should look at the real world and not their idealised, propagandised fantasy. - BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Someone OSS tried to patent software patents some time ago, IIRC.
- rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"Sudo is distributed under the following ISC-style license:
Copyright (c) 1994-1996,1998-2005 Todd C. Miller
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies."
Can we expect a HUGE lawsuit from Todd Miller against Microsoft in the near future? - macoafi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9RTFA. That's what the thing says. It says they patented what is essentially sudo and would therefore make it an invalid patent due to prior art.
- Hamsterpotpies, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I think this is a cry for help from Microsoft. They know Linux is better. It's just time till they are known as micro-who?
- roosterjm2k2, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23Its not evil in the least bit.
If they use it to stop other people, then it could be, but even then they couldnt, prior-art and all. However, without the patent, somone else could claim the patent (from linux, maybe) and could actually force MS to rip UAC out of the OS... Its more of a defensive move.
The patent system in america sucks, gates has even said so, he doesnt like playing the patent game at all, but you have to in order to stay alive. As long as the system exists, you have to play it right to be successful.
And UAC is a damned good thing, and not much different than any other OS. Most major linux distros ask you for root password to run certain config programs, or install software, to access system files. Hell, sudo is very much like uac, except uac is automatic...
Plus, its easily disable-able if you need to. Its not a front-page option on the control panel for a simple reason. If you're smart enough to honestly not need UAC in place, then you are smart enough to find how to disable it.
Anyone with family members who constantly come to them with support questions (why is my computer so slow, i only installed every yahoo game and ff/ie toolbar in existence) ... UAC is a godsend. - kodek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9At least you didn't use the greaterer than sign. That thing could destroy the universe!
- MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Of this you are incorrect.
Whether or not UAC asks you for a Admin privledges is based on an embedded manifest in the file, or a number of crude markers (for example, if the file name ends in 'install')
If none of these are present, and a program needs admin privledges, it won't get a UAC prompt, and will run as a user. - powatom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The patent system is broken - the only way to get rid of it is to not patent any and every little thing that springs to mind. Open-source developers are basically relying on the idea that even if a company did patent something which has existed in the open-source world for years, then that company wouldn't be able to enforce their patent because of prior art. Dangerous behaviour? Possibly, but to many open-source developers, particularly those who are members/supporters of the FSF, patenting a software 'invention' is just something they are unwilling to do. That being said - there are times when FOSS devs have applied for 'protective' patents (I think anyway, I definitely recall reading something of that nature), but:
a) Most individual FOSS developers just don't have the money to patent stuff,
b) It goes against the principles that many FOSS developers hold. - chetanw, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10What's new about Microsoft stealing someone's stuff?
- geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"they could never win in the court of law"
This doesn't matter as they operate outside of law and with threats and what many call FUD. They never went to court over exactly how linux infringes on their patents, they just signed deals with companies and tried to create an atmosphere of (f)ear (u)ncertainty (d)oubt.
If you shine light on cocroaches, they run away(SCO), these cockroaches stay in the dark. - jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The patent sounds over-administrative to me.
I think it's called a defensive patent, if the Unix world sues for whatever they can waste time in court with this patent, and meanwhile rake-in the Vista money. - etnu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If sudo was as horribly implemented as UAC, nobody would use it.
- dtreese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5In related news regarding patents on things that have been around forever, Microsoft just filed a biotech patent:
A process whereby an organic probe is used to place haploid cells of one user in proximity to a single haploid cell from another user. On completion of said process, users are rewarded with an endorphin release in the central processing neural net. - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6In short, no.
The patent describes a system that displays an authorization prompt in response to an application attempting to do something that requires admin privs.
This is different from sudo, and the various graphical version of sudo, because sudo must be explicitly invoked by the GUI application or the user on the command line in order to elevate their permissions. It won't happen automatically.
While some GUI applications on Linux display a SUDO GUI dialog before continuing with an operation that requires admin privs, this is because that GUI application knows ahead of time that this particular operation will require admin privs.
UAC, on the other hand, is automatically displayed regardless of what the application in question knows or does not know. (Although "hints" can be given in the form of an XML config file for the application in question.) - jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5they could never win in the court of law. you can't enforce a patent on something which obviously had prior art. and sudo came before, so it was basically a waste of time for them.
- xspinkickx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6steal sudo, patent the idea and pretend like it wasn't invented 30 years ago
accept or deby?
Get your chimp like CEO, Steve Balmer, to threaten linux users with legal action for patent infringement
accept or deny? - senfo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I assume you meant "software patents", but in that case, why does any company need them?
- macoafi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I heard Debian has a patent on some type of DRM specifically to keep it from ever being put to use. Possibly "urban legend" though
- 1021, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Chill out kids, have you ever heard of something called run as? It's the equivalent to Sudo in linux which has been around for a long time. UAC is a new concept and the quote used in this patent file is taken WAY out of context because that part of the patent is supposed to sound generic. Later on in the document, you can clearly see that this won't ever get in the way of tools like run as or sudo that have come before it as an infringement of the patent.
This really shows how taken out of context stuff can be, even earlier on in the day in the story called "7 things system admins forget to do" on digg, they talk about Sudo and it's equivalent command in Windows called run as.... chill out folks, the patent was filed in 2000, if msft was going to go after sudo, they would have done it by now. Love the inaccuracies even within the article "Did Microsoft just patent sudo" later on they go "When did this Microsoft patent happen?...2000". 7 years is an eternity in IT.
So why get riled up over nothing? Enjoy life. - motters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If you watch any of the Richard Stallman about patents you soon get a good idea of just how broken the system is. Obviously this patent wouldn't stand if challenged, since there is just too much prior art.
- ordminute, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The problem isn't whether or not there is prior art (of course there is) so much as it being too expensive to prove it.
It costs around $250,000 to fight back a patent claim. MS new this when they patented the sudo-like method. This is why software patents will always be absued by hungry corporations like Microsoft, Apple and IBM.
There simply is no Utopia of equal opportunity where innovation is concerned. It a fencing racket between the big guys with the advantage that all the little guys are far too scared to even attempt to innovate. -
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