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. Your understanding of patent law is flawed.