Package Manager Denies Permission to Install

[R. G. Newbury]

Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta at gmail.com> wrote:
 > > Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> wrote:
 > > But PolicyKit does not work in a root session:
 > > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=447266

 > Hmm...this is probably worthy of some nuanced and masterfully
 > persuasive oratory as to where to strike the balance between designing
 > for expected use cases and designing a system with flexibility to
 > accomedate local needs even when those use cases are not considered
 > best practises.  .

No nuanced and masterfully persuasive oratory can disguise the fact that 
   someone has made *and enforced* a decision that *they know better 
than the user* how "THINGS MUST BE DONE" purely because the doing, is 
considered to be 'not best practice'.

In this particular case, the 'best practice' enforcement approaches 
religious fervour in its application. In the particular instance which 
started this thread, PolicyKit nags about being root, and then *refuses* 
to allow the installation of an rpm! It does not deny the right to 
download and install the rpm in a console....It just denies the user the 
advantages of using PackageManager to resolve dependenices directly.

And *exactly* what nuanced extra is added to the equation, by forcing 
the administrator to log out of root, to log in as a user, to do the 
same thing? Especially in a circumstance where the install is actually 
desired to be general and not user-local? This position is idiocy.

I don't mind a nag. I DO mind unknown and unaccountable people 
attempting to enforce their quasi-religious beliefs on me (by 
quasi-religious, I mean the attitude which equates doing anything while 
root is akin to giving booze and car-keys to seventeen year old boys: 
instantly and always catastrophically dangerous.) I know using root can 
increase the probability of disaster. But I want to be able to decide 
what the limits of my risk tolerance are, not have someone else do it.

That argument, the libertarian argumnent is one of the underlying bases 
of the free software movement. Let's have it recognized and venerated in 
the code!

Geoff

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          I may wish to offend you again in the future.

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