Re: Orwell's 1984 from Freedesktop,org?

[David Both <dboth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<rant>

I run a small consulting service and work with both individuals and (very) small 
businesses. The objective of my consulting business is to help average people 
move to Linux when they decide that they have had enough of the M$ money wheel 
and endless malware infections.

Not one individual who belongs to that class of users cares how Uniix/Linux 
works, how it does updates or how to install new stuff. They *DON'T WANT* to 
know all that stuff. They want only one thing; to use the computer as a tool to 
perform needed personal or business tasks.

My wife is my most frequent client and she in every way reflects the attitude of 
every customer - except for two - that I have. "Don't teach me how the computer 
works. I don't care. Just make it work for me," is the common refrain. If there 
is a problem, she calls me; if she wants new software installed, she calls me; 
if updates are required, she does not want to see any pop-up messages, she just 
wants her system to be updated automatically when needed.

In most cases I go onsite to install new software or do updates. HOWEVER!!! 
There are times when I need to talk a customer through doing something that they 
would never, ever do if there were any other choice. They understand when that 
happens and together we can always do it in far less time than it would take for 
me to travel there and back.

But I *NEVER* want them to go mucking about on their own - EVER! They have no 
idea what they are doing and should not be doing any type of admin stuff - and 
that is really how they want it. They should be password protected from 
everything administrative or they will cause me much more work and cost 
themselves a great deal of money as I try to fix the predicament that they have 
gotten themselves into. For example, I cannot tell you how many times I get a 
call from users who have purchased a new printer and tried to install the 
software from the accompanying CD. AARRRGGHHH!! I tell them to just plug it in 
and it should work without installing any software, and for those who have 
purchased Lexmark printers, I tell them to take it back and get something 
supported. I am so glad they cannot try to force that software onto the Linux box.

I disable and remove PackageKit to prevent that kind of stuff.

As for those other two customers, they don't really care much anyway. They have 
the knowledge but not the time to perform the tasks they hire me to do. They 
really don't want me to change much as they have it working the way they want 
and like it. That includes updates - or not doing updates - and everything else.

For those historically ignorant developers, I say that they had *BETTER* care 
how it has always been done! It is that history, that philosophical difference 
from other operating systems that has made Linux as popular as it is today. 
Change is good, but the philosophy of Linux is important to ensure that the 
power, flexibility, security, reliability, and quality of Linux do not suffer.

See my article: https://opensource.com/business/14/12/linux-philosophy and I 
have another article as follow-up that should appear there soon.

</rant>

So, Scott, that is a very long-winded and rantful way of saying that I agree 
with you. ;-)



On 01/23/2015 06:37 AM, Scott Robbins wrote:
<snip>
> Originally, packagekit, which is a GUI package manager, wanted to allow all 
> users to install anything without a password. When a bug report was filed, the 
> developer mentioned that they didn't care how Unix had done things in the 
> past. This made the front page of slashdot, to almost universal derision, and 
> RH changed it. In Fedora, I believe it still allows any user to update an 
> installed signed package without asking for authentication. They tried to do 
> that in RH as well, but a bug report was filed, and it was changed. In my less 
> than humble opinion, this is how it should be. A non-privileged user should 
> not be allowed to make changes to the system.
> --



--


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David P. Both, RHCE
Millennium Technology Consulting LLC
Raleigh, NC, USA
919-389-8678

dboth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

www.millennium-technology.com
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