Ralph Wallis <mischief@optushome.com.au> wrote :
On Wednesday, 19 Dec 2001 at 00:38, Graham Lally <scribe@exmosis.net> wrote:
Ralph Wallis wrote:
On Monday, 17 Dec 2001 at 07:58, Michael Motyka <mmotyka@lsil.com> wrote:
Could someone who knows more than I do explain to me why this MS "IP" is anything other than making the owner of a PC unable to have root access to their own hardware/OS? If so it seems to be an idea unworthy of protection from lawyers and men with guns.
A more correct analogy is with speed limiters on cars.
On your own roads. And the car maker tells you where you can go to. And which route you have to take. And where you can end up. And then forces you to pay for a map.
If the patent hasn't been picked up by the courts yet, then why not? *If* the SSSCA were to come into effect (and I have heard little about it for several months now... biding its time?), then surely all other
OSes (subject to legal boundaries) would be prevented by the patent from implementing the requirements in the bill?
...and to appease the pedanty, it's hard to have a /more/ correct analogy when there was no analogy in the first place. There, got it out of my system...
pedanty isn't a word, and the original poster mentioned "denying root access", which is an analogy.
I have no idea why speed limiters on cars is even close to being a relevant analogy. I had a more simple and direct analogy in mind - it seems to me that what Microsoft is trying to do is what many of us put up with at work everyday - I use SPARC workstations to which I do not have root access. I run programs that I cannot modify and those programs can use data areas and drivers that I cannot access directly. This is fine at work - the company owns the computers, besides the sysadmins are actually really helpful. Having an external agent build fencees inside my own home is an entirely different matter. One worth a fight to the death.
Your understanding of patent law is flawed.
Since it seems that the possibility to accomplish what Microsoft has patented has existed for years prior to their disclosure isn't their patent a bit weak? Maybe it's more of a formality, a prelude to an OS dictatorship. After all, the 1st says nothing about the government making any laws regarding an establishment of an OS. Time to form a church of the homegrown OS. As of even date I consider Windows in all forms to be spy/subpoena-ware and I don't even trust Redhat anymore. Is it even safe to compile a TCP/IP stack without first obfuscating it? BTW - what is pedanty? Peasantry? Pedantry? I'm voting for 'peasantry' as the proper choice but yes, there was an analogy at the root of the original post. Mike