On Fri, Jul 21, 2000 at 12:25:51PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> > Mandrake is not being arrogant here.  This has nothing to do with
> > crippling functionality, but rather with turning a multi-user operating
> > system into something resembling a "desktop OS."  I think it's ineveitable
> > that these problems will arise.  I don't know of a good way to solve it;
> > do you?
> 
> Yes ... leave the OS be ... if you want to use it, you gotta learn about
> it!

So you're saying that we should intentionally make the distribution
insecure?  Because that's what running irc as root would do.  Running
irc as root is the stupidest thing anyone could ever do, and many
people don't even know it.  I know people who have run Linux right
from the get-go as root without ever making a user account for
themselves and they found themselves *very* sorry in a very short
time.

With what you are suggesting, I gather we shouldn't worry about
security updates either.  I mean, if there's a root exploit in, say,
your dhcp client, well, we should leave the OS alone and let the user
download and compile the source themselves if that's what they
choose.

For people who want that level of being "left alone", I typically
recommend Slackware.  Since we're not trying to be difficult, or
destructive (and, I'm sure, save ourselves support calls on users
doing things they should know better than to but may not), we do a
little bit of "hand holding" in what we think is appropriate.  I
don't think it will ever get to the point where we're as dictatorial
as MS (ie. I don't think we will ever make Netscape an unremovable
package), but we do have to do some things to make the users safe
from themselves.

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