Re: GNOME Development Series Addition

[Erik Pukinskis <erik pukinskis uconn edu>]

Regarding the system-wide vs. single user preferences...

There are four types of users:

A) Users of single user machines [1]
B) Users of multi-user machines without an admin [2]
C) Users of multi-user machines with an admin [3]
D) Administrators of multi-user machines

Of these four, the only group who need access to system-wide preferences
is group D.  For group A, they are the only ones using the machine, so
single user preferences *are* system wide.  For group B, no one has the
authority or desire to set system-wide preferences.  And for group C,
the admin doesn't want to allow them to set system-wide preferences.

Thus 99% of users have no use for system-wide preferences, and the ones
that do are admins.  For this reason, it seems to me that all of these
applets should set preferences for just the current user.  The
system-wide preferences can be accessed from a separate app that allows
admins to control the usage parameters of the machine in general.  This
app could also include things like security lock-down settings.

Erik

[1] Laptops, etc.
[2] Family PCs, etc.
[3] Corporate/University shared systems, etc.