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Apple Tries to Patent Fast User Switching
Ashcrow writes "An article from The Register points out Apple's attempt to patent fast user switching. It seems that Steve Jobs admits that Microsoft beat them to the punch but believes Panther's implementation is superior."
OSNews has had it since friday
-cococoocachoo
Here's the Direct Link.
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You've probably just seen it on other sites since the news has been out for a while now.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
because it appears that nobody here is able to. They are not patenting fast user switching per-se but changing application settings and preferences on the fly, such as what location manager is doing.
It's definitely possible to run multiple X sessions on different virtual consoles. Sucks a bit of ram, but you can definitely do it.
Sure, multipse X sessions are easy! Here's a very nice tutorial on how to do that.
...that UNIX beats itself. OS X is UNIX, and user switching is really just as fast as on any other *NIX based system, the only delay is Apple's insistance on having a perty Quartz graphics transition between it.
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That's pretty much what XP does anyway. Keep all the apps and the windowing system up on a virtual screen. Sucks up some ram and is a copy of UNIX's innovation. Par for the course.
If you read the article, you will see that Apple has filed a CONTINUATION of a patent involving user-switching, originally granted in 1995. This is a completely legitimate move on their part. It is arguable that they have owned this technology for years. As for using SU for user switching, this would be true as an earlier form, however the patent applies to the GUI. Dan
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Straight from The Register story (the The Register story?):
:)
At WWDC, Jobs admitted that Microsoft had beaten Apple to market by offering such a feature in Windows XP, but he claimed Apple's implementation was the better of the two.
That would imply, surely, that Microsoft has a solid prior art claim?
No. The current application, filed last November and updated this past June, turns out to be a continuation of a patent, number 6,512,525 filed in August 1995, long before Windows XP arrived, and finally granted in January 2003 with the same title. That patent is also assigned to Apple.
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It was on macslash
You should use AdiumX on your Mac.
Nope.
Read the article.
Grok fast user switching
Grok Location Manager
Unless the X-Terminals you're talking about actually changed system settings, preferences, and configuration states (like IP address, network connection settings, battery/power settings, screen savers, executed scripts, startup and shutdown services, and ran programs in the background), FUS and LM is a different beast.
It's *obvious* in hindsight, but OS 9 had it, and Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2k, and XP don't, so perhaps it isn't *obvious* in design? Perhaps that makes it worth patenting?
It's still a better patent than, say, One Click.
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Actually it is a means by which anyone can become anyone else, with the correct password.
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as a developer I recieved a free copy of the developer preview of OSX 10.3, and the fast user switching is by far superior in speed and eye candy.
I also expect that to be the last such migration in my life time. It might be famous last words, however I do have trouble believing 64-bit processing and addressing will get outgrown by any software we'll be running on the desktop.
The PS2 has a full 128-bit processor. The EE (MIPS R5900) is based around a 32-bit MIPS design, has 32-bit instructions, etc, but all 32 of the general purpose registers are 128 bits wide. Really crazy. You can use those as real 128-bit registers, or you can split them up and do MMX-type operations on them. With a proper version of GCC, you can declare 128-bit variables without doing the long-long kludge on 64-bit values, etc.
I don't have a link to something about it right now, but you can probably google for one without much trouble (and it's described at length in the PS2 Linux PDFs). Either way, there's already a 128-bit processor out there! I acknowledge that you said "desktop software" and it's not like we all have them on our desks, but a few million people already have them in their living rooms ;)
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Acutally Apple is trying to patent Fast Switching for handheld devices, not desktops. Also they already had the patent for it from teh Newton Days, this is just an extension and adding in multiple devices and personas to slightly enhance the patent. It was in the article. Not a very big deal.
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Apple happens to have prior art, since 1995, that applies to the current patent, and is evidently a continuation of that patent.
GPL Deconstructed
If there's a prior implementation, how can it be patented,
Prior art doesn't matter for patent applications, unless there's prior art that has already been patented.
When patent examiners get a new patent, they look for prior art in the USPTO patent database. The assumption is that if there's any prior art, someone would have patented it. If there aren't any patents, then it passes that test. They don't actually bother to check if there's non-patented prior art, even if it's something anyone in the field would know about. The examiners have very little time to check each patent and pass it, and they know that if anyone disagrees they can just go through the court systems.
On linux (and probably any other system with XFree86 ) To get to the first virtual console Use: CTL+ALT+F1. Then login and type:
someone@server someone]$ startx -- :1
X windows starts using the next available console. To switch between X sessions use CTL+ALT+F7 and CTL+ALT+F8. To start more sessions use :2, :3 etc. This has been available (but not well documented) for many years. Have Fun!
It's not only possible, but some of us have been doing this for over ten years. If Apple pursues this patent, I'm definitely calling prior art on this.
You can simply include the "-" arg if you want to fix all the env vars and get a proper login shell: "su -" will give you a root shell, "su - joe" will give you a shell for joe, etc -- all variables, etc properly set.
The case against UI skins maker was the use of the Apple Logo and calling it Aqua. Most of the people removed the apple logo and changed the name and everything was ok.
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Anyone know if KDE/Gnome or even Xfree is planning something like this? I heard talk about multiple X servers, but its not out of the box simple use, of even possible.
/usr/X11R6/bin/X vt8" after the line ":0 local@tty1 /usr/X11R6/bin/X vt7", but I don'y use kdm, so your milage may vary. (xdm is more complicated, so google if ya use that). As suggested by the kdm config to start a new X server on another virtual terminal just specify the vt you want to use. I think this has been around since shortly after XFree86 was first ported to Linux, maybe earlier on the BSD's. Recently it's been possible to program virtual terminal switching to keys other than the basic F1-F12, so easy switching isn't limited to just 12 users anymore. I never understood why multiple X servers haven't been used in the Linux distro's, at least on a "allocate one X terminal per 256 MB of RAM the computer has" basis. My desktop has had a gigabyte or more of RAM for years, I'm not really concerned about a few extra buffers eating up a tiny bit of memory. Even my laptops with 256MB-512MB in the last 5 years can handle an additional X server without batting an eye.
If you use gdm to login, add the line "1=Standard" after "0=Standard" in your gdm.conf. If you use kdm I think you just add the line ":1 local@tty1
You can also give the different servers different configurations, which is the traditional use for this. But by default the X server started by kdm/gdm requires a login and uses the same config, so it is exactly what you want. BTW if you want to be able to login with the same user twice you will have to enable that, by default it is not permitted to prevent remote users from starting lots of X servers and consuming all your resources... (though this is also limited by the number of virtual terminals you allow.)
Unless you're familiar with Location Manager and can disagree with that implementation, I don't believe there *is* prior art.
... AppleScripts to manage everything else
:: 'Multiple users - Machine' then it does appear valid that Fast User Switching is a continuation of the original patent Apple holds regarding the technology that is Location Manager.
Or rather, that Mac OS (Classic, not X) *is* the prior art, and that *Apple* owns the original patent, of which this is merely a continuation if you read the article.
Location Manager allows a single user to change multiple settings on a computer with a single selection:
Wireless Plugged
Wireless Unplugged
Netless Plugged
Netless Unplugged
Wired Plugged
Wired Unplugged
At Home
At Work
Roaming Unplugged
So that with a single selection the user can change:
Bandwidth settings on Qucktime and the network
Power/Battery/Energy saver settings
Screen Saver settings
Printer settings
Network settings (DHCP and Proxies)
Browser settings
If you look at 'Multiple locations - User'
su is *not* fast user switching, it is just changing the user locally in a terminal; and it doesn't change the settings of the machine, applications, or even the environment *outside* the terminal, unlike FUS or Location Manager.
GPL Deconstructed
Su does not "maintain state" like the XP/OSX fast user switching features does. If I log in as user1, then user2 wants to finish some old work, I do not do "su user2" and have it resume where he last left off.
no comment
Has anyone here actually read the patent that the Register article links to?
/. story now), with only their wild guess as to what Apple is actually patenting.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices".
It's a hell of a stretch to go from that patent to fast user switching. The Register even admits it's a inaccurate description of user switching, although they underplay it.
That patent sounds like it would more accurately describe a handheld device that could serve multiple roles (like a mp3 player, a movie player, a camera, a phone, etc) and could rapidly reconfigure it's GUI to accommodate whichever 'persona' the user wanted.
I'd say this is just the Register blaring sensationalist bullshit to get attention (and succeeding wildly since they have a front page
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Surprised I haven't seen any posts specifically describing this yet, but in KDE 3.1 (at least the version in Debian, but I think it's distro-independent) there's a "Start new session" option in the k-menu which opens up kdm in a new x session. You can also access this when the screen is locked - there's a button in the password prompt to start a new session.
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I was really impressed with how WinXP handled itself in a little test I devised: Start installing MS Office in 1 account, switch to user2 and start surfing the web, fetching e-mail, etc. Switch back and hey presto! office was installed. I say: sweet. that's a good implementation. I don't know anyone who would want to do that on a daily basis, but hey, it's proof of concept.
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su is not the same as fast user switching. I don't know whether you've used "fast user switching" on windows or OS X, but they are not at all the same. su allows you to become another user (really, in the shell). fast user switching lets you switch to a desktop which is for a specific user -- like a normal windows or OS X login. But you can have many of these running concurrently -- say one user has a window with their browser running, and one with a mail client runnning, etc. Fast user switch to another user and do whatever you want... the other users desktop is unmodified and runs just fine in the background. Of course this is a resource hog... if you have 200 MB of GUI apps running for 3 or 4 users, they're all taking up their own process space and RAM.
Except that Microsoft's fast user switching doesn't work if your computer is joined to a Windows domain. Which makes it pretty useless for a lot of settings. Example: Fast user switching would be very convenient for my wife and I, but since my home PC is joined our the campus domain, it's disabled.
You rock... It looked a little intimidating at first but I had a look at /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf and found:
Remove the comment before the '1=Standard' then reboot and you're good to go. (Yeah, I know, you don't need to reboot, just do a 'killall gdm-binary' but I'm trying to make this look simple.)
Bad news is the lock screen buttons and the screen saver don't seem to work on the second desktop. I've poked around but can't seem to find a fix... Guess this is getting pretty far off topic.
MacOS location manager is itself old hat. Multiple roles according to what the user/system is currently doing goes back to military systems in the 1960's. The military stuff is actually vastly more powerful because you can in general tie anything to a role - security rights, commands you can run, settings, files you can read.
Linux pcmcia has had similar stuff since about 1994/5.
Apple's is just a *lot* prettier and more used oriented than anyone elses 8)
This is for switching "personas" on a "mobile device". None of the mainframes I have known were mobile, and none had any persona either (tho' I did have a SO for a while who was built like a mainframe and had persona to boot.)
Has anyone here actually read the patent that the Register article links to?
/. story now), with only their wild guess as to what Apple is actually patenting.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". That patent sounds like it would more accurately describe a handheld device that could serve multiple roles (like a mp3 player, a movie player, a camera, a phone, etc)
A laptop is a mobile device too. In fact, the patent explicitly makes a distinction between a hand-held computer and a portable computing device (see claims 34/35, 43/44 and 50/51 from the patent). In the desciption it states that: "Computers are becoming increasingly [...] portable. [...] Laptop, notebook, and sub-notebook computers are virtually as powerful as their desktop counterparts." In other words, the class of portable computing devices referenced in the patent includes laptops.
It covers "Multiple personas for mobile devices". It's a hell of a stretch to go from that patent to fast user switching. The Register even admits it's a inaccurate description of user switching, although they underplay it.
The term 'user' as used in Unix is really just a persona. It's certainly not equal to a person since the root and guest accounts are not directly related to a person. They are more like roles, aka personas. Multiple personas seems to be an valid description of (fast) user switching.
I'd say this is just the Register blaring sensationalist bullshit to get attention (and succeeding wildly since they have a front page
Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to examine the entire patent (it's very long), but your criticisms don't seem to hold water. So for the time, I'll have to give The Register the benefit of the doubt.
PS. Quotes were edited for readability.
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