[aklug] Re: Ought to be fun - Microsoft has patented "sudo"

On 11/16/2009 06:51 PM, Jim Gribbin wrote:
> I don't think I agree with ars technica that a user using sudo is
> operating as a different user. If the user is "su"ing to a different
> user, that would be operating as a different user. Of course, even then
> the user is using an elevation of current rights to be able to change to
> a different user.
>
> Using sudo is claiming "super-user" rights as the same user. The user's
> default paths don't even change. This looks to me like an elevation of
> rights.

Well, no. From the man page:
NAME
 su - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs
SYNOPSIS
su [OPTION]... [-] [USER [ARG]...]
DESCRIPTION
 Change the effective user id and group id to that of USER.

If you su w/o any arguments, your environment stays the same. If you do
'su -' you land in root's folder and environment. If you do 'su
<USERNAME>' you become that user. Whether or not the MS land grab
reaches that far I don't know. But it's a pretty superficial patent
regardless. Next thing you know they'll be trying to say it applies to
a graphical login screen that lists users. Or something...

...Kevin

-- 
Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://counter.li.org
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