Microsoft Patents Sudo?!!
Vaibhav Gupta
| Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! - Updated 2Xs |
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| Wednesday, November 11 2009 @ 10:36 AM EST |
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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. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention". This is why what the US Supreme Court does about software patents means so much. Hopefully they will address the topic in their decision on Bilski. Sudo is an integral part of the functioning of GNU/Linux systems, and you use it in Mac OSX also. Maybe the Supreme Court doesn't know that, and maybe the USPTO didn't realize it. But do you believe Microsoft knows it? Perhaps Microsoft would like everyone in the world
to pay them a toll at least, even if they don't want to use Microsoft's
software? Like SCO, but with more muscle behind the request? Or maybe
it might be used as a barrier to competition? What do you personally
believe Microsoft wants patents on things like sudo for? To make sure
innovative new companies can compete on an even playing field with
Microsoft? Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms of implementing the claimed invention.Please don't ever again write to me that software patents are good for us because they include full disclosure, so others can build on the "invention". And to the USPTO, whose representative just argued in oral argument in Bilski that software should be patentable and that software can make a regular computer a special use computer, and all that drivel, please put those thoughts together with this patent, and consider the market implications of giving anyone that kind of monopoly, and especially the implications of giving it to a monopoly named Microsoft. It's like giving a serial killer his very own machine gun, stronger than any gun his intended victims are allowed to purchase. You have to ask, what were you thinking? Obviously, if they could figure that out,
they'd never have issued this patent in the first place. The fact that
they did, without realizing the implications, or the obviousness, or
the prior art, tells us that the USPTO simply lacks the foundational
technical information, or the awareness of technical history, to make
wise patent decisions about software and patents. |
Vaibhav.