SJS wrote:
I believe this was the reason that OpenOffice used to use to justify
requiring administrator access.
It was stupider than that, IIRC. OpenOffice required Xfb in order to
configure and install something (I have *no* idea what) which required
root. That was it.
Once they pulled out the Xfb dependency, that disappeared and the whole
need for root disappeared.
I think Peter da Silva's correct:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/aac01bd0f8e67f0e
EVERYTHING in the system should be controlled with the filesystem.
It's close, but not quite right.
The issue is what the OS folks call "capabilities". Every single
resource should have a "capability" associated with it that controls access.
"Everything in the filesystem" is a proxy for "permissions and ownership
on everything" is a proxy for "capabilities on everything".
There is research on this with Coyotos and CapROS operating systems.
However, they often fall afoul of the same problems as microkernels,
poor performance.
Of course, if they got the same level of attention that Linux does, they
wouldn't have performance problems.
People seem to forget that the performance of Linux was a hard won
battle over time rather than due to any amazing technical architecture.
-a
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
