Technically Legal

Groklaw has a story claiming that Microsoft was just awarded a patent for sudo with a GUI.

That’s not really the accurate. The patent covers a computer program that:
(1) Pops up when you don’t have permission to do something
(2) Figures out what users do have permission to do it
(3) Gives you a list of those users, and
(4) Lets you enter a password to do the process under that account.

Sudo, on the other hand, really only does the last element. Notably, sudo doesn’t tell you when you can’t do something, the shell does. Also, sudo doesn’t offer a choice of users to log in as.

While the patent may be invalid as a software patent, it certainly isn’t defeated by the prior art that is sudo. Also, it’s really bad security practice. Why should that user get a list of users who are allowed to do a process they can’t?

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