A further patent by Microsoft brings the software patent discussion to a renewed boil: the software giant has claims on "sudo."
At regular intervals Microsoft issues reminders that Linux and other free software allegedly infringes 235 of its patents. Now sudo could become number 236. Sudo is short for "super user do" and familiar to every Linux and Unix-like operating system users as a way to apply root privileges to a process. Now packaged with a graphical interface, the function is registered at the U.S. Patent Office under number 7,617,530. Microsoft describes in the usual perplexing patent lingo how they position their claim. Pamela Jones, who runs the Groklaw site, summarizes the formulation into a few words: "Sudo for Dummies."
The first reference Microsoft makes to sudo's origin is in the year 1997. The sudo command actuallly goes back to somewhere near 1980 when Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer developed it at the State University of New York in Buffalo and applied it for the first time to 4.1BSD. Sudo is currently maintained by Todd Miller of OpenBSD. Referring to its long history, Jones mentions quite dryly in her Groklaw blog, "I guess Microsoft forgot to mention that." The conclusion to the patent has the far-reaching final wording, "the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described."
Open source lawyers are putting their hopes into the so-called "Bilski case." In October 2008, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that business ideas are not patentable. The case is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court and experts believe that the ruling could significantly affect the patentability of software.
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Comments
What sudo really means
Axel Siebert Nov 13, 2009 10:58am GMT
The article is wrong, Sudo is short for su "do" (see http://www.sudo.ws/), and "su" stands for "substitute user" (http://linux.die.net/man/1/su), so it's "substitute user do".heh
heh@heh.heh Nov 13, 2009 10:35am GMT
"God your dumb"The irony is THICK with this one.
His what is dumb?
Scott Evans....
The general public Nov 13, 2009 12:23am GMT
... God your dumb.Re: Ms patents Sudo
Sassinak Nov 12, 2009 3:20pm GMT
Ack! How can they do this?!All right, I'm patenting the letter "e" (and "E"
Microsoft Patents Sudo
Scott Evans Nov 12, 2009 2:03pm GMT
Hmm... here we go again!So open a CMD terminal in win2k, win-XP, Vista & win7 and I bet if you type "sudo" you get this is not a recognised command!
Also open command.com for win95/98/ME and type "sudo" again it will be unrecognised!