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Microsoft (Probably) Didn't Just Buy Unix
jfruhlinger writes "Word came down this morning that when Attachmate bought Novell, certain intellectual property rights were sold to a Microsoft-led consortium as part of the deal. Since Unix is the most valuable piece of IP Novell owns, there was a certain amount of panic that suddenly Redmond is in charge of this foundational technology for Linux and a number of other open source projects. But, while MS is being cagey, Brian Proffitt doubts that Unix was part of the IP package that was sold — and believes that Linux would be safe even if it were."
Then they would boot up a LiveCD, mount the root partition somewhere, chroot into it and run `passwd' to set their own root password.
Linux is not using Unix. It is unix-like, but that is about it. Also don't fix what ain't broke. Even MS is now admitting they must go that way with their powershell and even headless setup.
Forgot to mention, two articles written by two idiots does not change this fact.
Unix is a trademarked term that belongs to the open group, genetic unix would be the BSDs. Linux does not fall into either of these groups, it is only unix-like.
Being functionally similar to GNU/Linux, the patents of Unix vendors are quite likely to cover GNU/Linux. Windows is much further away, and yet GNU/Linux allegedly infringes hundreds of MS patents. I'm not particularly worried because as I understand it anything that Novell is an author of or distributes that is under the GPL would be safe from Novell's patents even if said patents are sold. As for porting things to BSD, that wouldn't help anything, especially since the *BSDs have a decent amount of code in common with Unix, and doesn't have a patent clause.
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BSD's UNIX code was replaced in accordance to the terms of settlement of USL v BSDi. Though this case happened almost 17 years ago, so the patents in question are probably no longer enforceable.
No, they licensed UNIX from AT&T to make Xenix - AT&T still owned the rights. (Newer versions of System V licensed some code back from Microsoft - there's some code with Microsoft copyrights on it.)
More importantly, Novell owns a LOT of patents related to networking, directory services and things like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
882 patents, not 481. Sorry.
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Microsoft probably would do it as you described, since that is the convoluted, much more complicated, and much slower way to do it. A real Linux guy would simply pass "single" as a kernel boot parameter, which gets you to run level 1 logged in as root sans the need to enter a password.
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Novell didn't have to show they owned the rights to Unix in SCO vs Novell - just that, whatever rights they had, they didn't convey them to Santa Cruz.
So whatever they bought from AT&T, it wasn't "ALL right to Unix."
Well, just take a look. Novell was one of the companies that invented networking, so they have stuff that probably every modern OS is infringing. Active Directory very probably infringed some of them (that probably was one of the reasons why Microsoft signed a patent agreement with them). Just some examples:
Method and apparatus for network file recovery
Firewall system for quality of service management
Methods, data stores, data structures, and systems for electronic identity
System and method for automically authenticating a user in a distributed network system
Method and apparatus for proxy authentication
Secure intranet access
System and method for synchronizing database information
They even have some UI patents: Method for automatically resizing a child window
And some weird OS functionality Method and apparatus for mapping page table trees into virtual address space
Of course they are stupid, but god knows what can a good lawyer firm do with them.
Sometimes a distro will muck with init setup so that prompts for root password.
However, there's a good chance init=/bin/sh will work (depending on initrd contents).
Booting a rescue image is probably the most bullet-proof way to do it, unless the root fs is encrypted in which case you're screwed unless you had a password that can be dictionary cracked.
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Actually, there was a time (2.5 decades ago) when Microsoft sold a very popular (for a period, the most widely installed) Unix variant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
There are lots of people on here that remember Xenix and SCO UNIX, from the days before Caldera bought SCO's UNIX IP and went on a litigation rampage. What few of them mention is that until 1987, MS owned and sold Xenix. SCO ported the OS to Intel's early x86 chips, and licensed the right to sell it, but they didn't own it until 8 years after the company was founded.
Of course, the MS of the 80s was a very different company from the giant it has become.
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Sounds like you are doing something wrong. Their centralized policy management is crap, I say this as someone who used to work on that side of the IT world.
In today's war's it now involves a British Officer putting down the cup of tea to press the button whilst watching the latest Hollywood film re-writing history saying it was an American Officer that drank coffee and pushed the button. (U-571 anyone?)
FTFY
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