Normally we don’t report on every fart that gets patented by the big companies, but the following patent by Apple is actually pretty interesting: Apple has patented a method to store a user’s ~/ directory (home directory) on external storage (the iPod?), making it portable. This will enable users to carry all their settings, programs, and files with them, so they can load up any Mac in the world with their own settings, programs, and files. Obviously, this is ‘just’ a patent, and by no means a definitive feature of Leopard or Leopard+1, but interesting nonetheless. Is this Apple’s answer to Google’s OS?
This sounds pretty obvious to me. My thoughts:
That will be pretty cool for Apple users.
Has this really never been done before on Linux?
Great, now we’ll never be able to do this on Linux because apple will sue us.
Software patents are not recognized on every country, so it may be implemented somewhere without being sued.
But doing that on a classical unix may be a headache, because you need to dynamically decalare users depending on connected devices. PAM is here for this kind of stuff. (think about NIS or LDAP, that authenticate users and enable to specify an abitrary home mount point, it’s quite similar)
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/whatispam.html
So possible, but what’s not on GNU/Linux ?
My method is better.
Plugin 2.5″ Firewire or USB external enclosure, mount, then do rsync on your home dir. Voila, instant backup and/or portable desktop.
So, where’s my patent, gold star, and/or cookie??
Edited 2006-10-11 21:32
http://wiki.coolmon.org/files/cookie.jpg
cookie for u 🙂
BUT you have to promise to share (no patenting it)
Has this really never been done before on Linux?
Of course it has been done. Years ago. That’s what Mandrake Move (or something named like that) was all about. This method is used by quite a few Live distroes as well.
http://www.mandriva.com/en/individuals/products/move
When it comes to patents, Apple is no better than MS, Amazon, and the rest of the lot.
Great, now we’ll never be able to do this on Linux because apple will sue us.
Who has Apple been suing lately? Have I missed the news about Apple vs. “linux” suits?
So now that this is patented i cant use it any more on my current linux box? And i might get sued too =P Apple is soon as bad as sco. I am a mac man at heart, but this is just getting silly.
As long as you don’t live in the US there’s no problem (or japan, or…)…
But well I think this has been done before, like for example you can use firefox and install it on a memory stick and use it everywhere on a windows pc, with your preferences, so I think if they sue you they will loose their patent.
so I think if they sue you they will loose their patent.
no, they will loose their patent lawyers on you…
Firefox (specifically that feature) didn’t exist in 2002… I’m sure someone had done this before 2002, but still – nobody challenged the patent before it was given to Apple, so now someone must bear the burden of proof in order to overturn it. In the meantime, I suspect Apple won’t go around suing anyone – they probably just patented this concept to protect themselves.
Edited 2006-10-11 23:06
This has existed for a while now. How is it someone can patent an existing technology that they did not invent? Mandrake Move anyone?
This has existed for a while now. How is it someone can patent an existing technology that they did not invent?
Well, first – the patent was filed a “while ago now” as well – November 25, 2002 in fact… so you’ll have to define “for a while now” in order to determine who was ‘first’..
Secondly, you can patent something which already exists unless someone proves prior art or obviousness… which apparently nobody has done (or they failed if they did).
Just because they’ve “secured” the patent doesn’t mean it will hold up in court – and nobody will know that unless it’s tested in court. So maybe Apple filed this patent to protect themselves from someone doing it and costing them needless amounts of money after-the-fact. This is a common tactic that companies employ now-a-days.
Edited 2006-10-11 21:10
Well, first – the patent was filed a “while ago now” as well – November 25, 2002 in fact… so you’ll have to define “for a while now” in order to determine who was ‘first’..
Heh. This makes me wonder how one can file a patent on a technology that doesn’t even exist yet, since someone has stated that Apple wanted to implement it in OSX 10.3, but couldn’t work out the bugs.
I have a schematic for a perpetual motion machine, and I’d like to file a patent for it, although I haven’t yet worked out all the bug… 😉
“This makes me wonder how one can file a patent on a technology that doesn’t even exist yet…”
Welcome to the world of software patents. There are two ways in which patents are filed: either it is a patent of something that doesn’t exist yet, so if someone goes ahead and invets/implements it, it can be sued. Or it is something that exists already, was invented by someone else, who didn’t think/had no means of patenting it. The Brave New Software Patent World.
Isn’t storing your home directory on an external disk / ipod called a Backup. Y’know, those things that have been around for quite a while now.
The actual automated process and interface to easily attach that backup and temporarily use it might be patentable though.
Looks like this is the key point:
The computer operating system would be built to recognise user accounts held not just on the computer itself, but on such external storage devices.
Local privilege escalation attacks just got a little easier.
Edited 2006-10-11 20:37
Not really, all though it adds a ‘vector’ per-se, OS X’s UNIX permissions are reliable, and an iPod user would find themselves isolated from other users’ folders, and most likely, lowered privledges that would prevent them from deleting any file not in their own home. This isn’t Windows you know where you can freely delete /install the hell you like.
(edit: corrected lazy typing)
Edited 2006-10-11 20:55
What the parent meant, I think, was that this would give you local account access on a machine, where you did not have one prior to connecting that iPod. That is one step closer to getting the root account.
This feature was once a part of early Panther builds (10.3), the functionality seemingly vanished from the operating system during its latter development stages due to a number of imperfections.
One of which was that using old 3G iPod hard disks continuously drastically reduced their life, as well as getting very hot (to the point of faliure).
Possibly it was deemd that home-on-iPod would end up in too many warrenty claims / support issues on these early iPods.
They patented that? I can do that in my sleep with Linux. f–king idiots. Or f–king geniuses.
Please elaborate on this, since it is quite interesting to me that you’re able to do this in your sleep…
Of course you can setup your machine to mount your ‘iPod’ in a specific place, putting your home directory in that place and you’re fine … -on your own computer, that is…
How would you get my Linux installation to recognize both your user account and group relationships, mount your ‘iPod’ in the same place as expected in order to respect your home setup, make sure not to scre anything up on my machine, making sure that everything returns to ‘normal’ after use???
…I’m just curious… ’cause this is what I read from the Apple patent: The ability place your home directory on an external media and login to your own account on ANY computer (Mac) that supports this, having your data and settings available anywhere …
I don’t see that on Linux…. But I may be wrong… Enlighten me!
Well, with some hassle, I can do that, not in my sleep though. Patents are meant to be protecting inventions, this is not an invention.
In fact, that’s what mandrake move was about. Homedir on you USB, and everywhere where you can find a MandrakeLive CD, you can log in using your own settings, etc.
Probably this can be done without a live CD as well. It needs a customized distribution, if there isn’t one already, but it isn’t something new. As soemone said — basically that is how backup works. In fact, I just installed Archlinux a week ago, and copied over my ~ from my FreeBSD installation. After chowning (no wheel group on arch) -R my new ~, it worked as expected. Anyway, the point is, that this patent is ridiculous. The patent system wasn’t invented for this kind of stuff.
I don’t see that on Linux…. But I may be wrong… Enlighten me!
This is exactly what Knoppix did, months before Mandrake Move, which is old technology already.
Its crazy what can be patented in the US. The mouse “click”, the hyperlink, even the rights to basmati rice were registered by a New York company.
The European approach is not great but it does try to cut down on the patent madness by aiming to limit it to real invention, and specifically excluding “discoveries”.
The irony is that patents and copyright law were intended to protect intellectual investment and encourage innovation and a free market economy – right now the looming threat of patent violations serve only to scare off small innovators and developers ….
The irony is that patents and copyright law were intended to protect intellectual investment and encourage innovation and a free market economy – right now the looming threat of patent violations serve only to scare off small innovators and developers ….
Why we all should do out part to make sure that that “looming threat” is destroyed.
Might I suggest [url]http://www.pp-international.net/%5B/url] as good team to support?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
When I was a grad student, the university had my home directory on a network (in the terminology of the patent, “external storage”) which made it portable from any machine that could load the network. Apple’s only improvement appears to have been to automate their OS so that it does this automatically with USB devices, instead of requiring the system administrator to set it up himself (as one would have to do in Linux, for example).
Thus, Apple’s improvement is a size-epsilon improvement to existing methods, and not an invention by any common understanding of the term.
If I’m correct (& correct me if I’m not; I didn’t read all the details of the patent), one wonders what drugs they’re pumping through the ventilators at yon Patent Office…
What you mention is similar to NIS. But that system relies on a central server which manages accounts (with passwords), and information about user groups. When someone logs in, the NIS server is contacted to check the credentials and to ask where the user’s home directory is located.
I think what Apple wants to do, is having all that information somehow distributed, with the relevant information for each user stored in his home directory on an external disk.
I suppose this mechanism would for example allow me to use my home dir on an external disk at my own home, and later in the day bring it to the computer lab at the university, connect it there, be able to do my stuff. Then go to the library, connect my disk and login with my account on the disk, do my stuff, and in the end go home again.
I do wonder whether this kind of account will in some way be restricted (like for example complete denial of write access on the local computer’s harddisk).
Windows has had roaming desktops for a long time and thats the same thing as well, just on a server instead of a usb device.
I’ve always kept my home folder on a different partition, just in case OSX decided to eat itself (it never has) and so I can reformat and reinstall new versions with no more effort than changing where my home is.
Putting everything on an iPod or USB drive should mostly work already. It would make perfect sense if I wanted to move myself seamlessly between home and office: just set up both machines with an account that looked for ~ on my (named) external device.
Making it work for anybody doesn’t look all that hard either (look for a valid directory on external devices when booted into “Special Guest” mode?)
Transferring an entire User account on a standard USB drive would make the U3 platform on Windows look pretty sad (not that it doesn’t anyway.)
Now setting up fstab to mount /home using removable drive will be patent violation, yay. It’s certainly innovative -_-
If they are only talking about mounting a directory on removable media, then the Patent Office is on crack.
If they mean that you plug it into some Mac where you have no local account, you can still log in with your files and stuff, then that is an idea.
Unfortunately for me, it was an idea I had a few months ago. This means that Apple now owns a portion of my brain, that portion which holds its “intellectual property”. I hope that they don’t sue me and take it out with a spoon.
Apple evenly. Typically ingeniously and over lengthen Microsoft ahead!
What does this sentence mean?!
Imaginative, if you have no imagination. But patentable? I’d like a patent for “a method for showing how ridiculous the US patent system has become”.
apple ran of with an idea of mine!
But after getting stung for $100M for using a hierarchical menu(!) on the iPod, wouldn’t you be patenting everything thing you do, just in case?
It’s the patent system that’s the problem. Everyone has to patent every little thing before someone else does.
I bet the devil is in the details, and the patent describes something only slightly similar and well dressed in words by lawyers:
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Using_FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_use_an_USB_memory…
a “method” to move users files to an ipod eh? don’t you mean “copy”??????????? computers have had copy programs like, forever. how are they even allowed to have a patent for this. the patent office is retarded when it comes to computers.
this is yet another rediculus patent.
also, microsoft had this. it’s called a briefcase. and it either came out on windows 95 or 98. cant remember which.
but the briefcase has the added benefit that you can choose either your whole user folder, or just a specific bunch of files that you want to transfer or update to a floppy or other removable memory device.
“microsoft had this. it’s called a briefcase. and it either came out on windows 95 or 98. cant remember which.”
95.
Did anyone ever actually use the Briefcase?
nobody but maybe it was too ahead in time where apple deliver it in a time where removable media is more and more common. Anyway It won’t be remembered as an apple failure if it fail
nobody but maybe it was too ahead in time where apple deliver it in a time where removable media is more and more common.
Removable media was pretty common back in the mid-90s. Back then, it was called a floppy disk.
Plenty of previous art, I reckon…
Anybody can mount a removable drive to his/her
home — this ability always exitsted in UN*X.
It can be done manually or by an automated way.
It is used for a log time.
US government should stop this Apple’s outlow activity.
or at least the comments, this has already been mentioned. and I quote:
“By coupling the external, portable data store to another multi-user computer, a user is able to log-in to any supporting multi-user computer and be presented with their user configuration and user directory,” the patent filing explains.
“Since the data store that stores the user account is not only external but also portable, a user can simply tote the data store to the location of different multi-user computers. In one embodiment, the external, portable data store can not only store the user account but can also provide general data storage. In another embodiment, the external, portable data store can be a portion of a portable computing device (for example, a media player) that provides other functionality besides data storage,”
that doesnt seem like a backup, copy, floppy disk or briefcase to me….
Edited 2006-10-12 13:27
that doesnt seem like a backup, copy, floppy disk or briefcase to me….
Right, it would be the equivilent of storing a RUP profile in windows on a removable device.
I personally don’t see it being such a big deal that its worth a patent but hey MS got a patent for a mouse click so WTF.
One problem, I think, is that the patent seem somewhat vague. One possibility is that it is just mounted on removable storage; this understanding, if correct, is patently absurd.
If, though, it means that the system which you get on validates a user based on the contents of the mounted device so that it does not matter if you have an account on that machine or not, that is a bit different. Still a stupid thing to get a patent on as it is not exactly an invention as it is not particularly inventive. Handy? Yes. But not inventive.
does this mean that i cannot mount my home to flash on my linux box anymore w/o asking permission from (paying money to) apple?…