Re: [PMH] Re: [Nautilus-list] Idea for Nautilus and GMC.

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Tuomas Kuosmanen wrote:
> Also, like Vlad said, is this so likely really? Most applications are
> shipped as RPMS or .debs these days, you dont really see plain binaries
> much.

Most software comes as packages, but on the same time I feel that
installers that acts as front-ends for installing the packages are also
becoming more common, in my opinion, so that the user has not to care
about learning the package manager commands. The Ximian installer for
example :-)


> If someone gives you one, the person can also explain how to run it.

And if I understand Miguel correctly, this is exactly what he wants
eliminated - the need to explain how to turn on permission bits. There
are users that are afraid of using a terminal, and there are users who
don't understand permission bits (even the Nautilus file permissions
view is cryptic if you don't understand basic file permissions).


> And if you dont know the person, you probably should not run it
> anyway. How many of the binaries you encounter really are ones you
> should run? I know it is the same issue if you install any binary
> packages, but still.

Trusted sources. I feel that a lot of people trust binaries that come
from gnome.org, ximian.com, or their distribution. :)

I think that a big security warning would be appropriate when
double-clicking a binary without execute permission set, though. "This
piece of software has probably been downloaded from the Internet and
could contain malicious code that can compromise your system's security.
Nautilus can try to launch this software for you, but you should under
no circumstances proceed if you are not absolutely positive that you can
trust this software.. blah blah"


Christian