RE: Document Centricity in GNOME [LONG]

["Gerry Chu" <gerrychu bigfoot com>]

"Open Safely" gives the user the implication that opening a file normally
using the plain "Open" command in _unsafe_.

Gerry Chu
gerrychu@bigfoot.com


   In addition to the file-association for the "Open" action, have a
   file-association for the "Open Safely" action. For many programs, it
   can be the association for both (Electric Eyes, MP3 players, etc.).
   For other types, there will be no "Open Safely" (Perl scripts,
   executables). A third category will be those with a different "Open
   Safely" action (Tcl's Safe Tcl, Java's sandbox, etc.). When an
   application installs (for example, via an RPM file), it should install
   itself to the "Open" and "Open Safely" as appropriate. Of course, it
   could consult a security setting to see if it should be installed in
   "Open Safely" (e.g., Safe Tcl might be all right if the security is
   low - high security sites may doubt if Safe Tcl really is safe). A
   system administer can change association system-wide, and a user can
   further override associations, just like other associations.

   Thus, the user is in control, but he is given a sensible default so
   the naive user will find it slightly harder to shoot himself in the
   foot.