On 24 Feb 2009, at 17:52, Wade Brainerd wrote: > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz > <bmsch...@fas.harvard.edu > > wrote: > They are a single, indivisible cause, and also the entire reason for > the > existence of Sugar. > > Many operating systems provide users with a set of powerful tools for > manipulating ideas and data. Sugar's purpose is to add another > dimension: > to encourage users to modify and share the tools themselves. To > that end, > if my friend sends me a modified copy of an activity, I must be able > to > run it without fear of wrecking my system. > > On the contrary, learning to develop software is almost impossible > without wrecking your system once or twice. > > Backups are the correct solution to this problem, not some crazy > security system. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks > like a nail.
I do very much agree about back-ups (Martin's and others school-server back-up work is in invaluable here), but the promise of Rainbow is not just about limiting the possibilities for how a system could get accidently/maliciously wrecked. For instance, how do you like the idea of 'a friend' silently harvesting all the Journal photos your kid has taken via a compromised/modified activity**? **actually Pippy and the slideshow example really creeps me out for just that reason – remind me, Pippy's getting special case hack permission to drive a 8 line highway through Rainbow security permissions, right? I know Rainbow, as currently implemented, is lacking in certain areas – but Rainbow is providing something I think is valuable, that's not available elsewhere, and in a manor appropriate for the non-specialist target audience. --Gary P.S. Maybe I'm just paranoid; v.happy to be corrected. > -Wade > _______________________________________________ > Sugar-devel mailing list > Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel _______________________________________________ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel