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Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw)
Groklaw
reports on a new software patent issued to Microsoft.
"Lordy, lordy, lordy. They have no shame. It appears that Microsoft has just patented sudo, a personalized version of it.
Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft."
Computerworld's IT Blogwatch
covers blog reactions
to the issue.
(Log in to post comments)
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 16:41 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]
They've done it again! Every time I start to think Microsoft has any morals, they do something like this!
...instead of standing up against software patents, as they should.
Oh well - I was thinking of buying a copy of Windows 7, but now I've changed my mind.
Groklaw going downhill... Posted Nov 12, 2009 17:56 UTC (Thu) by dw (subscriber, #12017) [Link] High melodrama is all I can say. I'm no lawyer, but even a cursory glance at the text makes it clear that this is not a "patent on sudo". At the least it describes, in very specific, patenty terms, a particular mechanism for a graphical sudo-alike system.
From my limited understanding of such things, that is not how patents work at all. If we can make a single byte tweak to fatfs to work around patent claims, then the mere fact 'our' sudo isn't graphical in the least is enough to indicate this claim covers an entirely different 'invention'. There is nothing surprising about this patent. You can find crap like it pumped out by big software companies every day of the week, including from supposedly 'open source friendly' big names, for why, I have no idea.
Groklaw going downhill... Posted Nov 12, 2009 18:03 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link]
The thing is, patents are supposed to be non-obvious to a reasonably skilled practitioner of the arts. People have been adding guis to things for years. Does that mean that adding a gui to sudo makes it patentable?
Note: I haven't read the patent. But if it's just adding a gui, IMO it should not be patentable; furthermore our sudo does have a gui, at least, in Linux I never use command-line sudo but rather the KDE graphical tool that elevates my privileges when I run a control panel applet or something similar.
Groklaw going downhill... Posted Nov 12, 2009 18:23 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Yes, Groklaw should have made clear that to infringe the patent, it appears that you have to have a graphical interface to sudo. However, this doesn't change the fact that Gnome, KDE, and Mac's OSX all have, um, graphical interfaces for allowing unprivileged users to execute privileged commands, and have for years.
Groklaw going downhill... Posted Nov 13, 2009 8:21 UTC (Fri) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link]
"There is nothing surprising about this patent. You can find crap like it pumped out by big software companies every day of the week, including from supposedly 'open source friendly' big names, for why, I have no idea."
As long as courts are taking on patent cases against computer software companies, companies are going to patent anything they can, even if they do not plan to use it or it may not even be truly patentable. Just because a "good" company owns a "bad/foolish" patent does not mean they plan to harm others, rather it may be the opposite. I believe big companies like to collect useless patents for bargaining chips.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 18:24 UTC (Thu) by pspinler (subscriber, #2922) [Link]
For what it's worth, here's a copy/paste of Tom Miller's reaction on the sudo-users' mailing list this morning:
-- Pat
I've already received a number of questions about US patent 7,617,530
My reading of the patent indicates that it is geared towards GUI-based
Sudo simply doesn't work this way. When a command is run via sudo
- todd
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 18:28 UTC (Thu) by pspinler (subscriber, #2922) [Link]
Apologies for the double post, here's a direct link to Todd's message in the sudo-user's mailing list archive:
http://www.sudo.ws/pipermail/sudo-users/2009-November/004...
-- Pat
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 20:35 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
So it's a hack that makes fine-grained privilege escalation possible on Windows, without fundamentally fixing the problem. I don't think Unix will ever need to implement something like this. On Unix, we can do this the right way with PolicyKit. We don't need popups to log in as a different user for a particular action.
I'm a bit curious though why Microsoft would feel the need to patent this. It's not really an invention. It's an ugly hack, with little chance of being copied.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 21:26 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] I'm a bit curious though why Microsoft would feel the need to patent this.It's probably not "Microsoft", but some software research/development group in Microsoft. One of the performance metrics used on such group could be "number of patents/year", so they try to patent every idea. Also, the individual researcher/developer might get a bonus for every patent.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 21:37 UTC (Thu) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
> On Unix, we can do this the right way with PolicyKit. We don't need popups to log in
> as a different user for a particular action.
What's "the right thing" when an unprivileged user wants to change a privileged system setting that
The idea is that perhaps that user can be called in to allow the task which you yourself are not
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 21:57 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
Oh, PolicyKit does present a list of privileged users if the user isn't privileged at all. The hack I'm talking about is that Microsoft's system actually runs the app as another user, giving the app all the privileges that that other user has.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 22:15 UTC (Thu) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
>The hack I'm talking about is that Microsoft's system actually
>runs the app as another user, giving the app all the privileges >that that other user has.
That's the way sudo works, which before PolicyKit was generally the method of choice for administrative tasks in GUIs on *nix (along with su).
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 12, 2009 23:51 UTC (Thu) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]
> On Unix, we can do this the right way with PolicyKit.
Yes, and there's the fundamental point we need to watch.
The patent basically deals with the OS recognising that the user doesn't have the permissions to do something, and prompting to enter the password for an account that does. sudo, on the other hand, requires the user to know beforehand (i.e. as they type the command) that they need it to run with elevated privileges; it prompts them for their own password and then checks its configuration for whether that person can run (that command) as that higher privilege. The difference is in the timing (before or after the command is being run), the authenticator being asked for (user versus admin) and the user interaction.
The big problem we have was that the patent was filed in 2005; PolicyKit started development in 2008. We need to find prior art for something that behaves like PolicyKit, rather than sudo. I'm not sure that sudo and the various analogues that people have suggested are the same as what Microsoft claims.
I agree with everything else that's wrong about this patent: it's obfuscated, it tries to explicitly claim that it's not just patenting the steps but anything that looks like them, and it's definitely stifling any possibility of progress in this kind of user interface. And I also agree that what they're patenting is a fairly stupid, fairly obvious way of dealing with the problem - some of the less intelligent species of the genus Cucurbita might have trouble remembering the name 'administrator' but few sysadmins generate their own administration user called (4Gn2z^/y$b8x"hQ - which seems to be the problem they're describing.
But don't fool yourself by thinking sudo is prior art to this patent.
Have fun,
Paul
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 13, 2009 6:59 UTC (Fri) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
gksu has been around for much longer than that (2003-ish), and it seems likely that somebody was using it to start certain programs that are known to require adminstrative permission when it came around. Does it matter much that the particular program didn't detect the condition, but it was "automatically detected" by knowing that the program needs permissions?
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 13, 2009 11:37 UTC (Fri) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
I've seen a few solaris users describe PolicyKit as being similar to a feature that solaris has had
for some time -- execution profiles/RBAC stuff. Can't find a concrete reference at the moment though so I don't know how to compare the two.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2009 11:45 UTC (Sat) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 13, 2009 11:44 UTC (Fri) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
Oh, by the way, I thought PolicyKit has been around for longer than just since 2008. I remember a
presentation on PackageKit at LugRadio LIVE in 2006 where it was mentioned as the component that would allow users to gain the privileges to install packages.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 13, 2009 20:37 UTC (Fri) by jdv (subscriber, #712) [Link]
The initial revision in the git repository is from March, 2006 (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/PolicyKit/log/?ofs=550); so even if that initial revision would count as prior art, it is not from before the patent application date.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2009 4:06 UTC (Sat) by luya (subscriber, #50741) [Link]
Quick question: Has that patent ever worked on 2005 for Microsoft and is the exact copy of PolicyKit? Microsoft must show a demonstration in that case.
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 18, 2009 9:08 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Well hopefully this patent will make PolicyKit infringing.
Explicitly suing to root in a shell before running minimal programs to adminster the system... vastly
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! (Groklaw) Posted Nov 13, 2009 7:50 UTC (Fri) by tonyblackwell (subscriber, #43641) [Link]
Any time I start Mandriva Linux Control Center from a graphical login other than root, it requires authentication against a user name it offers in a pop-up graphical window before starting MLCC. Generally it request authentication against the root login, but if I recall correctly, it changes this if the graphical session is previously configured to start without login, in the name of a particular user. I think in this case it requests authentication against the username in which the session is running.
Sounds very similar to this "patent". Certainly it graphically:
1. recognises the need for privilege escalation
Mandriva have been doing this for many years.
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