Re: How to suppress the annoying warning message for gmc??

["Kevin D. Knerr, Sr." <kknerrsr ptdprolog net>]

On 21 Aug, Daniel Lyddy wrote:
> Alan Shutko wrote:
>> 
>> Daniel Lyddy <daniell@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
>> 
>> > Because I *want* to.  And I am the master of my machine, not the other
>> > way around.  I've made an informed decision based on my appraisal of the
>> > potential risks and rewards, and I don't need to be second-guessed by my
>> > OS or its applications.
>> 
>> Indeed.  And having made that informed decision, you can easily modify
>> the source code on your machine and remove the warning.
> 
> I'm speaking from the perspective of a user, not a developer.  So "you
> can easily modify the source code" doesn't apply to me, because as a
> pure user I don't even have the inclination to install the sources.
> 
> And yes, you *can* be a power user without knowing jack about
> programming.

<Sigh!> It seems that this issue will be a perrennial . . .

If you take the "I am master of my machine" to it's logical conclusion,
then you had better be doing the programming. As long as you're using
someone else's code, you are going to be subservient, to some extent, to
the decisions that they have made.

And decisions *must* be made.[1] Otherwise there will be no code.

Not all decisions are (or should be) set in stone. But the GPL gurantees
us the freedom to change decisions we don't like by rewriting the code.

Or even starting from scratch.

We have GNOME because some people disagreed with early decisions by the
KDE developers to use QT and C++. Although the similarities[2] between
the two have led to religious wars and flame fests, overall, it is a
*GOOD THING* to have code based on different decisions. This lets users
choose applications that more closely mesh with their own choices
without having to code everything to their personal preference.

Regarding the "run as root" decision under discussion:

I don't know how much Unix experience Mr. Lyddy has, but for the benefit
of others who may not, I will reiterate the maxim that running as root
is "A BAD THING". Granted, there are exceptions. (I recall that I had no
choice but to login as root on a Xenix system I once administered
because there was no other way to execute a shutdown without being UID 0
in the foreground shell. And this system, for various reasons, required
frequent graceful shutdowns.)

In short, the wisdom that has been passed down through the ages is don't
run as root unless absolutely necessary. This is a sensible precaution
and one which is frequently included in code, especially in
security-conscious applications.

Hence, it is IMHO natural that the GNOME developers would include such a
check. GNOME is under heavy development and no security audit has been
done simply because the code is changing too frequently for such an
audit to have any validity.

Granted, a nag box is not the most pleasant thing in the world and may
well have not been the best way to do things. But adding a "Don't show
this warning" option only compounds the problem, to my way of thinking.

But to have no warning at all is far worse.

All it would take is for someone to get burned by a security exploit
because they were running GNOME as root to set off all kinds of bad
press about how insecure Linux and Free Software are. And I do not doubt
that someone will point fingers back and say, "Why didin't you tell me?"
even though they chose to ignore and disable the warning.

We don't need these potential headaches. Our two strongest selling
points are stability and security: compromising security to achieve
perceived usability is a poor trade-off.

Perhaps one can be a "power user" without knowing the first thing about
programming. But not without knowing *and* using proper security.

I guess it boils down to whether you want to be Tim Taylor or Al
Borland.

Barthel

[1] Being too generic (in languages or features or design) often has its
own set of serious downsides. Never _ever_ forget that.
  - Linus Torvalds, 1998 

[2] Yes, I said "similarities". People who have much in common argue
more heatedly over their differences than those who have little in
common.
-- 
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