Re: More desktop security thoughts (was Re: GNOME privilege library)

[Mike Hearn <mike navi cx>]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:03:26 -0500, Larry W. Virden wrote:
> I agree that should be the goal.
> 
> However, I could envision a scenario, without too much effort, where it
> probably would happen if they can perform any general action.
> 
> One of my kids is told "oh, you should play this new game (new music
> composition software, new web editor, ... whatever)."
> 
> They ask the friend how.  They are told "just download this rpm and
> install it.".   They do so.  They install it.  Alas, the app has
> dependencies that install new, not yet working dynamic libraries or
> older, buggy libraries, or require patches to a kernel that result
> in a variety of buggy behaviors...

Right, this can definitely happen today, but that's because we suck so
much at software distribution and is a whole different topic (see
autopackage, zeroinstall, for a few new ways of approaching this area).

So I agree it's perhaps a utopian goal for now given how much work there
is to do elsewhere in the system.