Re: Simplifying package installation.

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel gnu org>]

> what about the fact that rpm and other package managers (i know at least dpkg) 
> allow for installs to user-specified directories? i have never done this, but 
> it i know it is possible. i'm not sure about still needing root or not, but 
> (and i'm thinking as i write), it seems to me like it would be a good idea 
> for rpm to support per-user rpmdb's. that way, i can just do rpm -Uvh 
> gnumeric.rpm and it can check my rpmdb and the sys rpmdb for dependencies, 
> etc.

RPM needs root access.

Do we want to let random people have access to the rpm database?

Are we going to make our front-end setuid?

This is the source of most SGI IRIX security holes: the GUI tools that
granted root access for installing a package had too many holes in
there.

Miguel.