The Nonesuch recording of the sound portion of John Cage's multi-media piece HPSCHD came with a unique dot-matrix (I believe) printout of a sequence of preamp settings to change during listening to the piece. Volume, balance, treble, bass. Much lower tech than what is being describe here but still relevant (sometimes the 1970s are still relevant.) So, you had two "standard" ways to listen -- as the record was mixed and as it was mixed according to your personal printout. Of course, once you realized what changing the settings did for you, there were an infinite number of "versions" to listen to.
And non-open before that -- AT&T had a patent on the Unix SUID bit (a file attribute stored in a directory) which allows a program to run with the owner's privileges rather than as the user. The owner did not have to be root.
The source code really should only matter if it was a copyright infringement suit, not a patent one.
Early on in the development of Unix, a patent was granted on the SUID bit -- essentially a directory entry flag that signals to the OS that when running a particular program, it should do so as the owner of the program instead with the privileges of the invoker. It was essentially a software implementation of what could be a hardware feature. Was the patent granting a good idea? Don't know but the source code of a possible infringing system would be required to determine the infringement. It had nothing to do with copyright.
I work hourly and I'm an employee w/ benefits. Contractors also work for us hourly but get no benefits ("the temps"). I get paid for OT when it is necessary (although recently there has been a huge "No OT" mandate.)
So let's be clear about what is really being discussed.
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A John Cage record
The Nonesuch recording of the sound portion of John Cage's multi-media piece HPSCHD came with a unique dot-matrix (I believe) printout of a sequence of preamp settings to change during listening to the piece. Volume, balance, treble, bass. Much lower tech than what is being describe here but still relevant (sometimes the 1970s are still relevant.) So, you had two "standard" ways to listen -- as the record was mixed and as it was mixed according to your personal printout. Of course, once you realized what changing the settings did for you, there were an infinite number of "versions" to listen to.
Re: "Microsoft Patents Changing User Privileges Temporarily On The Fly"
And non-open before that -- AT&T had a patent on the Unix SUID bit (a file attribute stored in a directory) which allows a program to run with the owner's privileges rather than as the user. The owner did not have to be root.
Source code for patent suit might be relevant
Re: hourly != contract
I work hourly and I'm an employee w/ benefits. Contractors also work for us hourly but get no benefits ("the temps"). I get paid for OT when it is necessary (although recently there has been a huge "No OT" mandate.)
So let's be clear about what is really being discussed.