Vote for new Ubuntu Feature---Let's try it again --- and without getting all religious about it

[Chanchao]

On Wed, 2007-01-10 at 01:44 -0500, Jeffrey F. Bloss wrote:

> Stop and think for a second. After 15+ years of Linux development since
> kernel 1.0, and God knows how many years of Unix development before
> that, this still "Happens".

Don't get me started on all the glitches and weird things that still
happen after 15 years, mostly in the usability area. :)

> like not letting every Tom,
> Dick, and Harry application to elevate user privileges with a password?

If the OS can handle sudo upon application-start then *from a concept
point of view* the OS can also handle re-assigning privileges to running
applications.  I don't expect to leave that up to the individual
applications of course. 

It may actually be related to another long-time thing that irks me and
isn't even GUI related;  if you have a terminal / SSH connection open
and you're running an application and for whatever reason the connection
gets lost, then you connect again and 'ps -A' tells you that application
(with 4 pages of text in it that you wrote the last hour) is still
running, then I'd like to go grab that application back to my new
terminal!!! It would then get reassigned from the user-session that was
lost to my current session. 

So then (after properly authenticating) the OS can handle grabbing a
whole running application from memory, and reassign it to a different
user / session and continue it keeping all all data and everything.  And
when that's possible then it's also possible to reassign a running
application to a user who DOES happen to have the needed permissions to
save that file! 

> I'd prefer that my copy of Ubuntu washed windows and did laundry too.

As it happens I just hired a new maid/housekeeper to do all that.
Burmese girl, she 'just-works'. :)  Washes the car too, does the garden,
cooks.. everything.  Together with Ubuntu on the computing side, my life
is now complete. :)  I actually tried running Ubuntu in Burmese for her
but it didn't work, still got everything in English.  (Then it turned
out she's actually from the Shan States of Burma and doesn't read
Burmese, so it's not that urgent anymore. (Ubuntu doesn't do Shan). :)

> Ironically enough, my wishes are a lot more attainable than the wishes
> of people who want Gedit to handle system security. :)

I want the OS to handle system security, and the way Gedit runs and who
runs it. :P

[now someone is going to tell me to go code it or pay someone to code it, I can feel it]

> If he doesn't care then he can run as root full time. Or install
> Windows 98, or use some other OS/configuration which has none of this
> sort of security. 

There you go again... "if it is outside of my scope of The Way Things
Should Be then go use Windows 95 or an abacus". :)   A system can be
secure AND polished in the way it handles security.  Actually the more
polished it is, the more secure it is because people will understand it
better / quicker;  Currently people are tempted to go run as root which
would be bad. 

> > That's all.  No Unix-security-blasphemy takes place.
> 
> Nonsense. You're suggesting that every application be allowed to
> determine who is and is not permitted to act as an administrator
> independent of the OS. That's not blasphemy, it's castration. 

Ouch.. Actually no: I'm suggesting the OS to determine what user/session
runs an application, and be able to switch that when needed.

> You're asking that the entire Linux/Unix authentication mechanism be
> undermined.

Improved. Polished. Not undermined.

Cheers,
Chanchao