Now really there is more correlation than causation involved here, but Linux is GPL'ed and BSD is, well, BSD'ed, and Linux seems to be winning the race at this point.
Actually, Linux incorporates large amounts of code from BSD. (For example, take a look at Linux's syslogd. You'll see that it's the BSD syslogd, written by Eric Allman, who also wrote Sendmail.) So, BSD code is on every machine that runs Linux. It's also on every machine that runs FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, of course -- and every commercial version of UNIX. Windows (all versions with networking), OS/2, and BeOS also use BSD code -- particularly in the network stacks and utilities. MacOS X is based on FreeBSD Version 3.4. It may well be that there is no computer running any modern operating system that does not have BSD code on it. BSD wins by a landslide.
What's more, Apache -- which is licensed under a license that is essentially the BSD license -- has far higher market share than Linux has, or is likely to have.
I'd say that's a pretty good argument for the efficacy of the BSD License. It has done more good for computer users and programmers than any other software license. Were the Berkeley TCP/IP stack not released under the BSD License, we would not have an Internet today.
The BSD license limits the freedom of developers, because it doesn't let them use or build on any changes made by other developers.
Not true at all. The BSD License does permit anyone to change or build upon code that's licensed under it. However, it doesn't attempt to confiscate other developers' work, as the GPL and LGPL do. That's fair; it's their work.
The GPL & LGPL are a FREE licenses, what do you think most of the software you're using under Linux (and Linux itself) is licensed under?
I don't run Linux, nor do I run GPLed code unless I absolutely must.
And I never look at GPLed source code; to do so exposes any commercial programmer to severe legal risks.
(L)GPLed code is not at all free. It's not free as in speech, because commercial programmers can't look at it and learn from it -- nor can they publish commercial works that contain or are derived from it. And it's not free as in beer, because it imposes not only a high cost but the maximum possible cost (zero income from licensing the work) upon programmers who incorporate it.
Even if RedHat as a company was *not* making profit programmers like you and myself are still
getting paid regardless if the company makes a profit.
Enron employees were being paid, too, until the bubble burst and the company went bankrupt.
The fact is that Red Hat has lost millions of dollars and is still burning through stockholders' money at a breakneck pace. Its revenues dropped nearly 20% last quarter. (See the company's Form 10-Q on Edgar.)
When it collapses, many people will be "burned," just as was true with Enron. Look at the same Form 10-Q, and you'll see that in just the 9 months covered by the form, employees exercised more than $4M worth of stock options. If they still own the stock (and many are likely to), they'll suffer just as Enron's employees did.
The GPL Emperor (penguin?) has no clothes.
CodeWeavers has a lot of talented people working for it, and deserves to make money. A change of business model is the proper course. But adopting the (L)GPL as its "savior" is suicide for the company itself and damaging to everyone who would like to use WINE. (Again, the GPL and LGPL were intentionally and explicitly engineered to destroy businesses and livelihoods.)
Mr. Stallman, so the story goes, got annoyed that he couldn't fix a bug in a printer driver, and so developed the philosophy that, essentially, users of software
developed under this philosophy could always get at the source to make the modification themselves, and then send them out to benefit users as a whole.
It's important to know the truth about this story, which Stallman and the FSF have recently begun to propagate to cover up the true origins of the GPL.
The truth is that Stallman sought revenge when colleagues working at the MIT AI Lab left the organization to turn the discoveries they'd made in their research into products. Stallman was bitter because he felt that the academic "Nirvana" he found at the Lab was disintegrating, and pursued his former co-workers in the same way that an estranged spouse might stalk his or her "ex."
(For the full story, see Steven Levy's excellent book "Hackers.")
The GPL arose from Stallman's desire to sabotage his colleagues prospects for success -- as well as those of all other commercial developers, whom he branded as "evil" (his own word).
The LGPL, by the way, was originally called the "Library GPL" and was recommended by the FSF for libraries. Then, one day, the name was changed to the "Lesser GPL." Overnight, in Orwellian fashion, all references to the original name were expunged from the FSF's Web site as if the original name had never existed.
Why? Because Stallman had abruptly decided that the terms of the LGPL were not hostile enough to commercial software developers. Shortly thereafter, a new version of the license came out which was significantly more restrictive than the original.
The GPL and the LGPL implement an intentionally business-hostile and programmer-hostile agenda, and are not "free" in any sense of the word. They also do not qualify as "Open Source" licenses, as they discriminate against a group of people (commercial software developers) and against a field of endeavor (the production of commercial software).
The foundation of linux/GNU is all GPL licensed of the strictest sort and that hasn't hurt anyones ability to make money off of it or use it.
Oh? In that case, why has Red Hat lost millions of dollars, making only an insignificant profit in a very few quarters due to Enron-like accounting tricks? Or why VA Linux folded its original hardware business and is now barely limping along? Or why Eazel failed utterly within a year after its debut?
Remember: the purpose of the GPL, as stated by author Richard Stallman himself, is to destroy businesses that attempt to make money by producing software.
Ouch, my head hurts after trying to read that thing.
Something is wrong with the world when computing is more about legal document than writing code and fiddling with electronic gadgets.
Sometimes I think that GNU just makes matters worse by adding another layer of complexity.
You're right. One of the fundamental freedoms that users of open source should possess is "freedom from FUD." They should have confidence that they are able to use code in the way that they expect, and that they understand all of the terms and implications of the license.
Neither the GPL nor the LGPL provides this. Each begins with a political manifesto, then moves on to a license, rife with legalese, that the FSF itself admits has never been fully interpreted by a court. Even within the FSF's own ranks there are disagreements as to what the language means.
The BSD License is short, clear, and unambiguous. There's no FUD -- no question about what it means. And it has been tested and ruled to be valid in a court of law.
Licensing WINE under the (L)GPL would do more than infect it with an intentionally malicious, viral license.
This license change would, effectively, close WINE to me and any other developer who writes commercial software.
Here's why. As most people already know, the GPL and LGPL require developers who create "derivative works" to give their work away for free. But what most people do not understand is that if a programmer so much as looks at GPLed or LGPLed code, and later writes some code that performs the same function, he or she is open to accusations that the code produced later is a derivative work. (The late ex-Beatle George Harrison fell into a similar trap when he heard a song and, years later, wrote one with a similar melody. A court convicted him of "unconscious" copyright infringement because he'd heard the original song.)
For this reason, commercial programmers simply cannot look at source code that's published under one of the FSF's licenses without taking a tremendous risk which could destroy their careers as programmers. This may be fine with Richard Stallman -- who in the GNU Manifesto stated that programmers should code for love rather than money and that good salaries for programmers should be "banned" -- but for those of us who need to put food on the table it is simply a risk we cannot take.
Thus, if WINE is GPLed, I can no longer look at the code, fix bugs when something breaks, or contribute to the project. Nor can I peruse the code in order to learn from it. It will, effectively, be as closed as a closed source product to me and to any other commercial programmer. WINE will be un-free, and only a truly free fork (which I sincerely hope will occur if CodeWeavers attempts to change the license) will be accessible to those who want to code for a living.
If WINE is placed under a restrictive license (and both the GPL and the LGPL are highly restrictive compared to the current licensing), it's time to do what the OpenBSD/OpenSSH crowd did with SSH: Create a truly free version of WINE that isn't covered by a nasty license that's specifically intended to prevent free use of the code. It's a shame to have to do a fork, but it is the only way to keep WINE truly free. I have just downloaded the latest version of the code, just in case Jeremy & Co. attempt to make it unavailable. OpenWINE, anyone?
There is no reason to assume that the LAME code is included on the CD. (It appears that it is merely used to create the encrypted MP3s.) Of course, if there were a codec on the CD, it'd be easy for a large music publisher to license one that is not GPLed instead.
One interesting fact buried in the fine print at http://www.musichelponline.com/ (see question #4) is that if one wishes to play the copy protected discs on a computer, one must be running Windows. This suggests collusion with Microsoft to restrict access to content by users of non-Microsoft operating systems. Fodder for the DoJ, perhaps?
Yes, the field would benefit and does benefit, and the playing field is level.
No, it is not. When Walnut Creek owned the trademark originally, it stated, on the FreeBSD mailing lists, that it would not allow anyone other than itself to create "packaged" products that included FreeBSD and other software (e.g. a "FreeBSD Desktop" package with an office suite bundled in) and use the trademark "FreeBSD" in the name.
It doesn't seem to me that an open source project such as FreeBSD should be "controlled" by any one commercial venture. Bob Bruce has done a great deal for FreeBSD, but Chris Coleman and Daemon News have as well. They have just as much right to publish FreeBSD-related products, promote the operating system, and benefit from helping its user base.
The field would benefit from friendly competition, and the playing field for such competition should be level.
Alas, this is not the case. Because the FreeBSD trademark has not been transferred to the FreeBSD Foundation (as was promised more than a year ago) and will become the property of FreeBSD Mall, FreeBSD Mall has the ability to put pressure on any potential competitor by restricting its use of the trademark.
It is incumbent upon the users and developers of FreeBSD to prevent conditions so potentially destructive to competition from arising. The trademark should be transferred at once, and the FreeBSD Project should not designate either vendor as the "official" one.
A year or two ago, I waited two months after a domain name registered with Verisign expired. It did, and I registered it. No problem.
This is not the case today. Verisign is taking longer and longer to release domains... perhaps in anticipation of profiteering from them. In fact, I've been told that if an expiring domain is queried regularly, they now seem to hold it indefinitely.
I'm sure that DoubleClick realizes that its tracking database, and the equipment and softawre that compile it, are valuable to certain unscrupulous marketers. It therefore seems highly unlikely that they would "just" shut down. It's much more likely that they'll sell it to another unscrupulous company. I won't stop blocking them yet.... Rather, I'll prepare to block whichever company (e.g. Naviant or Donnelly) buys their tracking system.
We have an original BeBox in the lab. Since it is very unlikely that any newer version of BeOS will be available for it in the future, we are looking for a copy of the last released version of the OS that will run on a BeBox. Can anyone out there help?
The author of the article, which appeared in the Times today, tells me that he originally included information on the most outrageous aspect of Qwest's policy: in particular, that it would share calling information with third parties even if customers opted out. A copy editor, cutting the piece to fit, excised that key information and made it seem as if the data was only to be distributed to subsidiaries (which is anticompetitive and therefore hurts consumers, but most people won't realize that).
For the full scoop, including the text of the little notice included with Qwest's phone bills, read the IP posting.
I don't know why the guy was complaining about the questions the website asked, it was all stuff that is on the front page of your phone bill, phone number, name, address.
As well as your e-mail address (undoubtedly so that they can send you spam) and street address (not normally on your bill). But the point is that none of this information is necessary. To exclude you, they need your phone number and that's all. (Of course, it's all a sham because their notice says that they'll feel free to sell the most intimate details of the calls you make even if you opt out.)
My complaint is that the site has no security and is passing this information as plain text across the internet.
This demonstrates how much they care about keeping your personal information private: Not at all.
Here's a followup. Apparently, Qwest's bold move is due to a recent lawsuit in which Larry Tribe and other high-powered lawyers, working for the Bells, managed to derail the FCC's attempts to establish rules that protect consumers and promote competition. (See the decision at http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/1999/08/98-9518.htm). In this poorly drafted decision, two of a panel of three judges came to the absurd conclusion that requiring telephone companies to keep ANY customer information private -- including the details of whom you call and when -- violated the companies' First Amendment rights! (The same reasoning would cause any law requiring companies to keep information in confidence to be rejected on Constitutional grounds and would essentially negate all privacy legislation of any kind.)
While the third judge's ringing dissent demonstrated that there were some serious problems with the resoning and legal basis of the ruling, the Bush FCC, which is said to have a bias toward corporate interests, has thus far failed to appeal it.
Qwest and the other Baby Bells thus feel empowered to violate ALL of the plain language of 47 U.S.C. 222 (part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), which states:
Except as required by law or with the approval of the customer, a telecommunications carrier that receives or obtains customer proprietary network information by virtue of its provision of a telecommunications service shall only use, disclose, or permit access to individually identifiable customer proprietary network information in its provision of (A) the telecommunication service from which such information is derived, or (B) services necessary to, or used in, the provision of such telecommunications service, including the publishing of directories.
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.
Yet, the Bells press on to sell users' private information. Apparently, they believe that the agency charged with enforcing the law has been rendered so toothless that they may break the law with impunity. But the fact is that if they implemented the policy stated in their little "notice," they would be breaking the law.
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law? At the very least, states should make the company's proposed conduct illegal and fight attempts to destroy consumer privacy.
--Brett Glass
BIOSes should not be operating system-specific.
on
LinuxBIOS Gains Steam
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It is no better to be locked into running Linux on a machine than to be locked into running Windows. The BIOS should be a generic facility that can load any desired operating system.
Let's see here. What Microsoft is patenting is giving the user a trusted identity (setuid root) before allowing him or her to access the data, and then not allowing other processes to access the data (standard memory protection under UNIX). In short, what Microsoft has patented is being able to run a program setuid.
Slashdot Mirror
Now really there is more correlation than causation involved here, but Linux is GPL'ed and BSD is, well, BSD'ed, and Linux seems to be winning the race at this point.
Actually, Linux incorporates large amounts of code from BSD. (For example, take a look at Linux's syslogd. You'll see that it's the BSD syslogd, written by Eric Allman, who also wrote Sendmail.) So, BSD code is on every machine that runs Linux. It's also on every machine that runs FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, of course -- and every commercial version of UNIX. Windows (all versions with networking), OS/2, and BeOS also use BSD code -- particularly in the network stacks and utilities. MacOS X is based on FreeBSD Version 3.4. It may well be that there is no computer running any modern operating system that does not have BSD code on it. BSD wins by a landslide.
What's more, Apache -- which is licensed under a license that is essentially the BSD license -- has far higher market share than Linux has, or is likely to have.
I'd say that's a pretty good argument for the efficacy of the BSD License. It has done more good for computer users and programmers than any other software license. Were the Berkeley TCP/IP stack not released under the BSD License, we would not have an Internet today.
The BSD license limits the freedom of developers, because it doesn't let them use or build on any changes made by other developers.
Not true at all. The BSD License does permit anyone to change or build upon code that's licensed under it. However, it doesn't attempt to confiscate other developers' work, as the GPL and LGPL do. That's fair; it's their work.
The GPL & LGPL are a FREE licenses, what do you think most of the software you're using under Linux (and Linux itself) is licensed under?
I don't run Linux, nor do I run GPLed code unless I absolutely must.
And I never look at GPLed source code; to do so exposes any commercial programmer to severe legal risks.
(L)GPLed code is not at all free. It's not free as in speech, because commercial programmers can't look at it and learn from it -- nor can they publish commercial works that contain or are derived from it. And it's not free as in beer, because it imposes not only a high cost but the maximum possible cost (zero income from licensing the work) upon programmers who incorporate it.
Interesting. I may have missed the one place where the former name still appears (and is deprecated).
Even if RedHat as a company was *not* making profit programmers like you and myself are still getting paid regardless if the company makes a profit.
Enron employees were being paid, too, until the bubble burst and the company went bankrupt.
The fact is that Red Hat has lost millions of dollars and is still burning through stockholders' money at a breakneck pace. Its revenues dropped nearly 20% last quarter. (See the company's Form 10-Q on Edgar.)
When it collapses, many people will be "burned," just as was true with Enron. Look at the same Form 10-Q, and you'll see that in just the 9 months covered by the form, employees exercised more than $4M worth of stock options. If they still own the stock (and many are likely to), they'll suffer just as Enron's employees did.
The GPL Emperor (penguin?) has no clothes.
CodeWeavers has a lot of talented people working for it, and deserves to make money. A change of business model is the proper course. But adopting the (L)GPL as its "savior" is suicide for the company itself and damaging to everyone who would like to use WINE. (Again, the GPL and LGPL were intentionally and explicitly engineered to destroy businesses and livelihoods.)
Mr. Stallman, so the story goes, got annoyed that he couldn't fix a bug in a printer driver, and so developed the philosophy that, essentially, users of software developed under this philosophy could always get at the source to make the modification themselves, and then send them out to benefit users as a whole.
It's important to know the truth about this story, which Stallman and the FSF have recently begun to propagate to cover up the true origins of the GPL.
The truth is that Stallman sought revenge when colleagues working at the MIT AI Lab left the organization to turn the discoveries they'd made in their research into products. Stallman was bitter because he felt that the academic "Nirvana" he found at the Lab was disintegrating, and pursued his former co-workers in the same way that an estranged spouse might stalk his or her "ex." (For the full story, see Steven Levy's excellent book "Hackers.")
The GPL arose from Stallman's desire to sabotage his colleagues prospects for success -- as well as those of all other commercial developers, whom he branded as "evil" (his own word).
The LGPL, by the way, was originally called the "Library GPL" and was recommended by the FSF for libraries. Then, one day, the name was changed to the "Lesser GPL." Overnight, in Orwellian fashion, all references to the original name were expunged from the FSF's Web site as if the original name had never existed.
Why? Because Stallman had abruptly decided that the terms of the LGPL were not hostile enough to commercial software developers. Shortly thereafter, a new version of the license came out which was significantly more restrictive than the original.
The GPL and the LGPL implement an intentionally business-hostile and programmer-hostile agenda, and are not "free" in any sense of the word. They also do not qualify as "Open Source" licenses, as they discriminate against a group of people (commercial software developers) and against a field of endeavor (the production of commercial software).
The foundation of linux/GNU is all GPL licensed of the strictest sort and that hasn't hurt anyones ability to make money off of it or use it.
Oh? In that case, why has Red Hat lost millions of dollars, making only an insignificant profit in a very few quarters due to Enron-like accounting tricks? Or why VA Linux folded its original hardware business and is now barely limping along? Or why Eazel failed utterly within a year after its debut?
Remember: the purpose of the GPL, as stated by author Richard Stallman himself, is to destroy businesses that attempt to make money by producing software.
Ouch, my head hurts after trying to read that thing.
Something is wrong with the world when computing is more about legal document than writing code and fiddling with electronic gadgets.
Sometimes I think that GNU just makes matters worse by adding another layer of complexity.
You're right. One of the fundamental freedoms that users of open source should possess is "freedom from FUD." They should have confidence that they are able to use code in the way that they expect, and that they understand all of the terms and implications of the license.
Neither the GPL nor the LGPL provides this. Each begins with a political manifesto, then moves on to a license, rife with legalese, that the FSF itself admits has never been fully interpreted by a court. Even within the FSF's own ranks there are disagreements as to what the language means.
The BSD License is short, clear, and unambiguous. There's no FUD -- no question about what it means. And it has been tested and ruled to be valid in a court of law.
Licensing WINE under the (L)GPL would do more than infect it with an intentionally malicious, viral license.
It would infect it with FUD.
Here's why. As most people already know, the GPL and LGPL require developers who create "derivative works" to give their work away for free. But what most people do not understand is that if a programmer so much as looks at GPLed or LGPLed code, and later writes some code that performs the same function, he or she is open to accusations that the code produced later is a derivative work. (The late ex-Beatle George Harrison fell into a similar trap when he heard a song and, years later, wrote one with a similar melody. A court convicted him of "unconscious" copyright infringement because he'd heard the original song.)
For this reason, commercial programmers simply cannot look at source code that's published under one of the FSF's licenses without taking a tremendous risk which could destroy their careers as programmers. This may be fine with Richard Stallman -- who in the GNU Manifesto stated that programmers should code for love rather than money and that good salaries for programmers should be "banned" -- but for those of us who need to put food on the table it is simply a risk we cannot take.
Thus, if WINE is GPLed, I can no longer look at the code, fix bugs when something breaks, or contribute to the project. Nor can I peruse the code in order to learn from it. It will, effectively, be as closed as a closed source product to me and to any other commercial programmer. WINE will be un-free, and only a truly free fork (which I sincerely hope will occur if CodeWeavers attempts to change the license) will be accessible to those who want to code for a living.
If WINE is placed under a restrictive license (and both the GPL and the LGPL are highly restrictive compared to the current licensing), it's time to do what the OpenBSD/OpenSSH crowd did with SSH: Create a truly free version of WINE that isn't covered by a nasty license that's specifically intended to prevent free use of the code. It's a shame to have to do a fork, but it is the only way to keep WINE truly free. I have just downloaded the latest version of the code, just in case Jeremy & Co. attempt to make it unavailable. OpenWINE, anyone?
There is no reason to assume that the LAME code is included on the CD. (It appears that it is merely used to create the encrypted MP3s.) Of course, if there were a codec on the CD, it'd be easy for a large music publisher to license one that is not GPLed instead.
One interesting fact buried in the fine print at http://www.musichelponline.com/ (see question #4) is that if one wishes to play the copy protected discs on a computer, one must be running Windows. This suggests collusion with Microsoft to restrict access to content by users of non-Microsoft operating systems. Fodder for the DoJ, perhaps?
No, it is not. When Walnut Creek owned the trademark originally, it stated, on the FreeBSD mailing lists, that it would not allow anyone other than itself to create "packaged" products that included FreeBSD and other software (e.g. a "FreeBSD Desktop" package with an office suite bundled in) and use the trademark "FreeBSD" in the name.
--Brett Glass
The field would benefit from friendly competition, and the playing field for such competition should be level.
Alas, this is not the case. Because the FreeBSD trademark has not been transferred to the FreeBSD Foundation (as was promised more than a year ago) and will become the property of FreeBSD Mall, FreeBSD Mall has the ability to put pressure on any potential competitor by restricting its use of the trademark.
It is incumbent upon the users and developers of FreeBSD to prevent conditions so potentially destructive to competition from arising. The trademark should be transferred at once, and the FreeBSD Project should not designate either vendor as the "official" one.
--Brett Glass
This is not the case today. Verisign is taking longer and longer to release domains... perhaps in anticipation of profiteering from them. In fact, I've been told that if an expiring domain is queried regularly, they now seem to hold it indefinitely.
--Brett Glass
I'm sure that DoubleClick realizes that its tracking database, and the equipment and softawre that compile it, are valuable to certain unscrupulous marketers. It therefore seems highly unlikely that they would "just" shut down. It's much more likely that they'll sell it to another unscrupulous company. I won't stop blocking them yet.... Rather, I'll prepare to block whichever company (e.g. Naviant or Donnelly) buys their tracking system.
Ah, but where does one get a copy of R5? I understand that it was available for downloading at one time, but does not seem to be now.
We have an original BeBox in the lab. Since it is very unlikely that any newer version of BeOS will be available for it in the future, we are looking for a copy of the last released version of the OS that will run on a BeBox. Can anyone out there help?
For the full scoop, including the text of the little notice included with Qwest's phone bills, read the IP posting.
--Brett
I get my phone bill via the USPS, at the post office box I rent from them. The street address does not appear on the bill.
However, it appears that the phone company is eager to disseminate it to anyone who will fork over a sufficiently large wad of cash.
--Brett Glass
As well as your e-mail address (undoubtedly so that they can send you spam) and street address (not normally on your bill). But the point is that none of this information is necessary. To exclude you, they need your phone number and that's all. (Of course, it's all a sham because their notice says that they'll feel free to sell the most intimate details of the calls you make even if you opt out.)
My complaint is that the site has no security and is passing this information as plain text across the internet.
This demonstrates how much they care about keeping your personal information private: Not at all.
--Brett Glass
While the third judge's ringing dissent demonstrated that there were some serious problems with the resoning and legal basis of the ruling, the Bush FCC, which is said to have a bias toward corporate interests, has thus far failed to appeal it.
Qwest and the other Baby Bells thus feel empowered to violate ALL of the plain language of 47 U.S.C. 222 (part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), which states:
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.Yet, the Bells press on to sell users' private information. Apparently, they believe that the agency charged with enforcing the law has been rendered so toothless that they may break the law with impunity. But the fact is that if they implemented the policy stated in their little "notice," they would be breaking the law.
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law? At the very least, states should make the company's proposed conduct illegal and fight attempts to destroy consumer privacy.
--Brett Glass
It is no better to be locked into running Linux on a machine than to be locked into running Windows. The BIOS should be a generic facility that can load any desired operating system.
Let's see here. What Microsoft is patenting is giving the user a trusted identity (setuid root) before allowing him or her to access the data, and then not allowing other processes to access the data (standard memory protection under UNIX). In short, what Microsoft has patented is being able to run a program setuid.
It's in all major distros of Linux. None of the BSDs are impacted.