Tried and it worked for a while, but some things didn't work very smoothly and were intermittent. Printing (Canon's Linux driver support for their particular printer was really bad) and scanning (almost no driver from Canon) were two major issues. Syncing with iPods was another major issue.
Yes, a program can implement a UAC-ish thing or even call gksudo or whatever as necessary. But UAC is not embedded within each application and Microsoft is not patenting a try-catch statement. It sounds like Microsoft is patenting a way to catch the failed authentication before it fails... heh... and prompt the user. The application does not need to know about this - and doesn't, which is obvious from many older programs (pre-Vista) that end up making UAC prompt when they try to do something that Vista/7 now require elevated privileges to do.
And either way, gksudo does not do this, as many are claiming:)
Gnome (or whatever the name of the program it uses to do mount "management", I forget), I believe, wraps the mounts. If you simply run "mount" when not logged in as root, it fails and says you don't have permission to do that. Presumably, using a GUI is no different... except that the GUI knows you need to do it with sudo, so it does it for you. It's little different from writing your own script "mount" to override the real "mount"... and simply have your script run mount as sudo. That's not UAC, that's just wrapping a command with sudo because you know it requires it.
If using an Administrator action on a Linux system you already get a GUI dialogue to see if you wish to elevate your privileges for that one action
Before the action is attempted. So it's an application (a GUI) that is "wrapping" the administrator actions. It already knows what requires elevated permissions and lets you know beforehand. UAC catches attempts at actions requiring elevation by applications and asks you if you want to allow that/asks you to elevate your privileges... basically "on the fly." The application does not have to know beforehand that it requires elevation.
This is EXACTLY what this Patent describes. EPIC FAIL Microsoft! The FREE SOFTWARE WORLD has OUT INNOVATED YOU AGAIN! Been doing this for at least more than a year. Been in design/documentation/talked about for even longer.
And UAC was in Vista, which was publically released in 2007, almost three years ago (it was released in January of 2007)... maybe MS should claim prior art.;)
As I recall, you can set up sudo to only allow certain commands. If you are careful with what commands you allow sudoers to run, you can limit the amount of root activity they are allowed.
But it's how that "tool thingy" implemented it that is the question. Using apt requires sudo. If the downloading tool thingy is simply a wrapper for apt (in this example), then it could very likely be calling sudo (or a GUI sudo)... but it's the application that is specifying the need to run sudo. It's not the OS determining "Hey, you can't do that! Do you want to sudo?" At least in my experience, when you try to do something you're not allowed to do in Linux, you get a Permission Denied type response. At lower levels, at any rate; wrappers to these responses may retry with sudo or su or whatever.
It looks like the patent is specifically referring to intercepting things you're not allowed to do and instead of just failing, asking you to authenticate (/telling you that an application is trying to do that, do you want to let it?).
On an unrelated note, I didn't realize I responded to you in a different comment. Not trying to troll your comments or something. (just in case the thought arose)
gksudo escalates as required/when the system determines it is required?
In all my usage of *IX systems, I've always had to either use sudo before I ran something, whether that's in a script or a program calling it and waiting for the user, etc.
That's different from UAC. Which is why the OP said
escalate when the system determines that escalation will be required, not about escalating manually before the task is attempted.
As do I. Maybe since we work hard (well, I'm sure you do, not sure I do, since I'm on slashdot;)) for it and have other priorities and realize there are things in life we need to save for to afford, we are able to wait to pay for a game and not require it the day it comes out? Strange thought...
Excuse the familiar terms and usage of an inclusive "we."
I doubt most maids'/landscapers' kids are playing xboxes all weekend. It seems to me that some of the most hard-working kids I know are the kids of hardworking parents that couldn't afford to give them money for nothing. The kids worked for their money. And they seemed to tend to stay in school, too, because they had this strange idea in their head that nothing came free, so they were actually willing to work for it. Weird.
No, I did not grow up in Buckingham palace and we don't have landscapers - we did it ourselves. I don't see why you call them "servants," as though it's anything less respectable than a software engineer. They are paid for what they do. Some people do very good work and are able to charge much more for it. I even know landscape architects that are paid for their knowledge of plants and trees, what will work to help drainage or erosion problems, etc.
If the parent can't afford to pay their kid(s) money to do some jobs around the house and their kid(s) are too small to work "in the real world" due to labor laws, then I very much doubt that kid has ANY of these video game worries. They likely do not own an X-Box, they aren't spending ANY money on video games, and I very much doubt they are getting an allowance from their parents (if their parents can't afford to pay them for work, I don't see how they can afford to pay them for non-work).
I dislike malls. I like used goods. I save up my money and wait until I can purchase it. I don't buy it right when it comes out except on a few occasions (e.g., Lord of the Rings soundtracks/DVDs).
No say how much money he needs to hand over? I do have a say. I just go somewhere where it's cheaper. Good ol' competition. I even apply it to my health care, to my insurance, to my bought goods, to food, to online services, to computers, to musical instruments...
Just because I support ethical treatment of both consumers and producers/resellers/whatever doesn't mean I am a stupid mall-shopper that gets "brand" items that are ridiculously marked up. And yes, I use Linux.;)
"Legal" is a bad word chosen by me. Let's say... store policy. I don't expect a cashier at Wal-Mart to give me a discount just because I think it's too expensive. I don't think it's the store's policy to allow that. I could be wrong, but I don't think it is. That is what I meant by "legal."
It depends who you are talking to, I suppose. Not everyone is authorized by their company to do discounts:)
Mow lawns? Yard work? Do stuff for your parents? I know it's a strikingly new idea to most teens, but your parents don't HAVE to give an "allowance," and I would dare say that some of them may even be willing to pay their children to do jobs that they otherwise have to pay someone else to do... like clean the house if they do maid stuff, or mow/garden/etc if they hire landscapers, etc...
I argree, he probably didn't really play 30-40 games. Although... if he plays every night and all day on the weekends, he could get through a lot of games quickly. and enjoy them less than if he played them sporadically, oh well...
But that doesn't make a difference. So I don't use my [insert item, like a car] very often - that doesn't mean I should get it for free or cheaper than someone who will use it. All this does is presume the value of something to the producer is inherently tied to the value of that item to the consumer. The consumer sets the price he is willing to pay based on the value the item is to him by buying or not buying. But if you choose not to buy, you shouldn't still be entitled to getting said item...
I believe in free markets. I also believe in ethics. I think defeating this particular "closed system" is unethical. Furthermore, I see no problem in having a closed market. Microsoft can create a closed market if it wants to. They are providing goods and services. I would view dowlnoading 30-40 games along teh same lines as having a tech support guy come to my house, fix something, and then me not paying him - or, at best, paying him what he was worth to me as opposed to what he charges. If he accepts that, fine... but most of the time there's an agreement that I will pay what he charges for the services he renders. Not paying means I shouldn't get the service...
"free" market doesn't mean unethically taking something for free when it doesn't belong to you. Stealing something from someone's house isn't a "way to defeat the closed system of having to pay for something to get it." It's unethical behavior that we have decided is criminal behavior. Illegally obtaining video games, whether you play them or not, just because it's a "way to defeat the closed system of having to pay for the video game" is unethical behavior.
Closed systems are not inherently wrong and free markets are not entitled to do anything they want in the name of anti-closed-system-ness.
I guess it depends on the store. I'm thinking of non-barter-able stores, not individually owned and operated stores where they are actually free to do that sort of thing (which is great, of course... no problems with that, if it's legal:)). But good point on not expecting to get the item unless you both agree, heh.
I realize you are not taking this view, but responding to it anyway:)
Microsoft lost nothing as he did not take a physical disc and he got 600 pounds of value. Some would say that this is a good thing as no wealth was lost and 600 pounds of wealth was created. Since he could not have paid, there was no lost sale.
The only problem is, he could afford it. He spent 75 pounds to get it "chipped." That's the 12% of the price of the 30-40 games he later said he copied, so he could have at least bought 10% of those games (3-4).
My take is that people have decided they want what they want now and if there is an easy and relatively safe way to illegally obtain it - instead of paying for it or saving up and paying for it - they will do it the illegal way. Modding wasn't illegal, AFAIK, but downloading was. And yes, Microsoft lost sales; presumably this guy would have bought games if he wasn't getting them for free, as he did have money to spend on it.
The "no lost sale" argument still implies that it's okay to do something as long as you can't afford to do it. That's the part of the argument that's wrong, IMO. That and there does definitely seem to be a pervading can't-wait feeling. You (and I) wait for the game prices to go down. These kids tell us they "can't" wait and that they don't have anything else to do if they can't play the newest games. Something is wrong there...
Slashdot Mirror
openSUSE 11.2 will come with the latest version 2.6.31 of the Linux kernel, the beating heart of every openSUSE system.
As opposed to all those other distros, which don't use the Linux kernel as their "beating heart." :)
Tried and it worked for a while, but some things didn't work very smoothly and were intermittent. Printing (Canon's Linux driver support for their particular printer was really bad) and scanning (almost no driver from Canon) were two major issues. Syncing with iPods was another major issue.
Yes, a program can implement a UAC-ish thing or even call gksudo or whatever as necessary. But UAC is not embedded within each application and Microsoft is not patenting a try-catch statement. It sounds like Microsoft is patenting a way to catch the failed authentication before it fails ... heh ... and prompt the user. The application does not need to know about this - and doesn't, which is obvious from many older programs (pre-Vista) that end up making UAC prompt when they try to do something that Vista/7 now require elevated privileges to do.
And either way, gksudo does not do this, as many are claiming :)
That's something like the 8th time you've posted this.. :)
Gnome (or whatever the name of the program it uses to do mount "management", I forget), I believe, wraps the mounts. If you simply run "mount" when not logged in as root, it fails and says you don't have permission to do that. Presumably, using a GUI is no different ... except that the GUI knows you need to do it with sudo, so it does it for you. It's little different from writing your own script "mount" to override the real "mount" ... and simply have your script run mount as sudo. That's not UAC, that's just wrapping a command with sudo because you know it requires it.
If using an Administrator action on a Linux system you already get a GUI dialogue to see if you wish to elevate your privileges for that one action
Before the action is attempted. So it's an application (a GUI) that is "wrapping" the administrator actions. It already knows what requires elevated permissions and lets you know beforehand. UAC catches attempts at actions requiring elevation by applications and asks you if you want to allow that/asks you to elevate your privileges ... basically "on the fly." The application does not have to know beforehand that it requires elevation.
This is rather different from sudo...
This is EXACTLY what this Patent describes. EPIC FAIL Microsoft! The FREE SOFTWARE WORLD has OUT INNOVATED YOU AGAIN! Been doing this for at least more than a year. Been in design/documentation/talked about for even longer.
And UAC was in Vista, which was publically released in 2007, almost three years ago (it was released in January of 2007)... maybe MS should claim prior art. ;)
As I recall, you can set up sudo to only allow certain commands. If you are careful with what commands you allow sudoers to run, you can limit the amount of root activity they are allowed.
But it's how that "tool thingy" implemented it that is the question. Using apt requires sudo. If the downloading tool thingy is simply a wrapper for apt (in this example), then it could very likely be calling sudo (or a GUI sudo)... but it's the application that is specifying the need to run sudo. It's not the OS determining "Hey, you can't do that! Do you want to sudo?" At least in my experience, when you try to do something you're not allowed to do in Linux, you get a Permission Denied type response. At lower levels, at any rate; wrappers to these responses may retry with sudo or su or whatever.
It looks like the patent is specifically referring to intercepting things you're not allowed to do and instead of just failing, asking you to authenticate (/telling you that an application is trying to do that, do you want to let it?).
On an unrelated note, I didn't realize I responded to you in a different comment. Not trying to troll your comments or something. (just in case the thought arose)
gksudo has been around for a long time as well.
I was responding to that.
I have barely used mac os's so I don't want to comment on those, I'll let people that have used it comment.
Incidentally, Apple is no stranger to patents and lawsuits, so if this Apple has prior art, I'm sure they'll let us know...
What is this error syntax you use and where did it come from? ;)
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>sudo
'sudo' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>
Who's right? Who's wrong?
Neither, who's on first.
gksudo escalates as required/when the system determines it is required?
In all my usage of *IX systems, I've always had to either use sudo before I ran something, whether that's in a script or a program calling it and waiting for the user, etc.
That's different from UAC. Which is why the OP said
escalate when the system determines that escalation will be required, not about escalating manually before the task is attempted.
The person analyzing this for groklaw is a lawyer well seasoned in tech and IP litigation, and disagrees with you.
That's the argument politicians use for why they know better than I do what I want ;)
As do I. Maybe since we work hard (well, I'm sure you do, not sure I do, since I'm on slashdot ;)) for it and have other priorities and realize there are things in life we need to save for to afford, we are able to wait to pay for a game and not require it the day it comes out? Strange thought...
Excuse the familiar terms and usage of an inclusive "we."
I doubt most maids'/landscapers' kids are playing xboxes all weekend. It seems to me that some of the most hard-working kids I know are the kids of hardworking parents that couldn't afford to give them money for nothing. The kids worked for their money. And they seemed to tend to stay in school, too, because they had this strange idea in their head that nothing came free, so they were actually willing to work for it. Weird.
No, I did not grow up in Buckingham palace and we don't have landscapers - we did it ourselves. I don't see why you call them "servants," as though it's anything less respectable than a software engineer. They are paid for what they do. Some people do very good work and are able to charge much more for it. I even know landscape architects that are paid for their knowledge of plants and trees, what will work to help drainage or erosion problems, etc.
If the parent can't afford to pay their kid(s) money to do some jobs around the house and their kid(s) are too small to work "in the real world" due to labor laws, then I very much doubt that kid has ANY of these video game worries. They likely do not own an X-Box, they aren't spending ANY money on video games, and I very much doubt they are getting an allowance from their parents (if their parents can't afford to pay them for work, I don't see how they can afford to pay them for non-work).
I dislike malls. I like used goods. I save up my money and wait until I can purchase it. I don't buy it right when it comes out except on a few occasions (e.g., Lord of the Rings soundtracks/DVDs).
No say how much money he needs to hand over? I do have a say. I just go somewhere where it's cheaper. Good ol' competition. I even apply it to my health care, to my insurance, to my bought goods, to food, to online services, to computers, to musical instruments...
Just because I support ethical treatment of both consumers and producers/resellers/whatever doesn't mean I am a stupid mall-shopper that gets "brand" items that are ridiculously marked up. And yes, I use Linux. ;)
"Legal" is a bad word chosen by me. Let's say... store policy. I don't expect a cashier at Wal-Mart to give me a discount just because I think it's too expensive. I don't think it's the store's policy to allow that. I could be wrong, but I don't think it is. That is what I meant by "legal."
It depends who you are talking to, I suppose. Not everyone is authorized by their company to do discounts :)
KISS (Keep It Simple)
You'd think "Keep It Simple" would be abbreviated "KIS" ;)
Mow lawns? Yard work? Do stuff for your parents? I know it's a strikingly new idea to most teens, but your parents don't HAVE to give an "allowance," and I would dare say that some of them may even be willing to pay their children to do jobs that they otherwise have to pay someone else to do... like clean the house if they do maid stuff, or mow/garden/etc if they hire landscapers, etc...
I argree, he probably didn't really play 30-40 games. Although... if he plays every night and all day on the weekends, he could get through a lot of games quickly. and enjoy them less than if he played them sporadically, oh well...
But that doesn't make a difference. So I don't use my [insert item, like a car] very often - that doesn't mean I should get it for free or cheaper than someone who will use it. All this does is presume the value of something to the producer is inherently tied to the value of that item to the consumer. The consumer sets the price he is willing to pay based on the value the item is to him by buying or not buying. But if you choose not to buy, you shouldn't still be entitled to getting said item...
I believe in free markets. I also believe in ethics. I think defeating this particular "closed system" is unethical. Furthermore, I see no problem in having a closed market. Microsoft can create a closed market if it wants to. They are providing goods and services. I would view dowlnoading 30-40 games along teh same lines as having a tech support guy come to my house, fix something, and then me not paying him - or, at best, paying him what he was worth to me as opposed to what he charges. If he accepts that, fine... but most of the time there's an agreement that I will pay what he charges for the services he renders. Not paying means I shouldn't get the service...
"free" market doesn't mean unethically taking something for free when it doesn't belong to you. Stealing something from someone's house isn't a "way to defeat the closed system of having to pay for something to get it." It's unethical behavior that we have decided is criminal behavior. Illegally obtaining video games, whether you play them or not, just because it's a "way to defeat the closed system of having to pay for the video game" is unethical behavior.
Closed systems are not inherently wrong and free markets are not entitled to do anything they want in the name of anti-closed-system-ness.
Yeah... I don't think eldavojohn was advocating stealing... quite the opposite.
I don't think so either.
I guess it depends on the store. I'm thinking of non-barter-able stores, not individually owned and operated stores where they are actually free to do that sort of thing (which is great, of course... no problems with that, if it's legal :)). But good point on not expecting to get the item unless you both agree, heh.
I realize you are not taking this view, but responding to it anyway :)
Microsoft lost nothing as he did not take a physical disc and he got 600 pounds of value. Some would say that this is a good thing as no wealth was lost and 600 pounds of wealth was created. Since he could not have paid, there was no lost sale.
The only problem is, he could afford it. He spent 75 pounds to get it "chipped." That's the 12% of the price of the 30-40 games he later said he copied, so he could have at least bought 10% of those games (3-4).
My take is that people have decided they want what they want now and if there is an easy and relatively safe way to illegally obtain it - instead of paying for it or saving up and paying for it - they will do it the illegal way. Modding wasn't illegal, AFAIK, but downloading was. And yes, Microsoft lost sales; presumably this guy would have bought games if he wasn't getting them for free, as he did have money to spend on it.
The "no lost sale" argument still implies that it's okay to do something as long as you can't afford to do it. That's the part of the argument that's wrong, IMO. That and there does definitely seem to be a pervading can't-wait feeling. You (and I) wait for the game prices to go down. These kids tell us they "can't" wait and that they don't have anything else to do if they can't play the newest games. Something is wrong there...