[ale] why I love windows

[Richard Bronosky]

A tool like that will never make sudi obsolete. Escalating privileges must
be an intentional exercise. Just because my user has the right to escalate
to root privileges does  not mean I want to be able to rm -rf / without
explicit-ness. That would lead to a different form of explicit-ness.
On Jan 30, 2012 2:01 PM, "mike at trausch.us" <mike at trausch.us> wrote:

> On 01/30/2012 01:46 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > Solution to the windows installer not running: (to install an .msi
> > program an installer SERVICE must be running to understand what to do.
> > what total crap.)
>
> I could see using a similar model for Linux systems; actually, most
> desktop systems these days use privileged helper services so that they
> can delegate certain types of authority without giving the user the
> ability to actually change their active user accounts, for example.  If
> enough other infrastructure-y components were written for it, it would
> be possible to do things like say “user Foo Bag can install software
> packages but not remove them”, or “user Bar Bag can remove software
> packages but not install them” for example.
>
> The major difference, though is that IIRC PolicyKit doesn’t require that
> services are running all the time.  It simply requires that they be
> registered with D-Bus or something so that they can be spawned when
> needed.  Services using that interface are free to exit immediately or
> after an application-determined period of inactivity.
>
> I need to get around to looking at applications that use PolicyKit so
> that I can more completely understand how to use it, but I think that
> the split there is very nice; it could potentially make tools like sudo
> obsolete.  There are even command-line applications that have been
> experimentally ported to use PolicyKit, though I cannot remember any of
> them off the top of my head.
>
>        --- Mike
>
> --
> A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
> than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
>                                   --- Carveth Read, “Logic”
>
>
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