[haiku] Re: As the Saying goes, what goes Around, ...

From: "Mark Hellegers" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: haiku@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 23:53:14 +0200 CEST

On 01/20/2014 12:34 PM, Stephan Aßmus wrote:

...
A system which is useful to "average users" is a system which
anticipates "average workflows" and has elegant, simple to
understand
solutions for those workflows. In this area, Haiku ...
...

As of 2016_05 I'm nobody in Haiku community,
I'm even worse than a "backseat developer", but
could someone please explain, how does Haiku
prevent that "average user" from getting its
desktop to a state, where the screen is literally
full of advertisement pop-ups and malware resets
web browser search engine to some fraudulent
Google imitator every time the Web browser is
closed?

[snip example]

Haiku does not prevent anything like this happening.
You basically run as root/administrator on your system, so any
application you run has full access to your system and can mess with it
however it wants.
The trick is not to run software that messes with your system.
I guess the haikuports archive of software at least prevents this a
bit, but everyone is still free to download and install whatever they
want. At least as long as Haiku is not very popular this threat is
relatively small.

So, what's Your plan for making an
awesome work flow to

_T_H_E___A_V_E_R_A_G_E___U_S_E_R_ ???

The catch is, of course, that the moment
You start requiring any knowledgeable
choices from the user, You lose the game,
because either You have to lock down the
system, so that the end user is able to
use ONLY the applications that You have
approved, ending up with a closed and
censored system like that of Apple's,
(Apple and usability for "the average user", get it?)
or the applications are forbidden
to cooperate directly with each-other,
just like web pages do not have
arbitrary access to hard disks,
operating system calls, apps at
other browser tabs, etc., and that pretty
much eliminates the situation, where
locally stored data can be worked on
with user-downloaded application.
The IT-wise stupid user still has
the opportunity to upload their
private data to some malicious cloud
service, but that capability is needed
for Facebook, YouTube, PornTube,
What-ever-new-Plumming-that-blows-to-the-users-Face

My own guess is that for technically
smart people the best choice seems to be
Genode OS, after the OS gets mature enough,
but I guess that there will always be
a natural market for cars that do not
have safety belts and as a green anarchist
I think that plain philosophically it is
wrong that some super-mafia, generally called
as "Government", tells merchants, what
they may and what they must not sell.
So, as a specialist I see that the only
option for protecting the IT-wise-stupid
users is super-mafia-id-est-Government "regulation",
but philosophically I can not stand it and
I am glad that the "regulation" does not exist
and I hope that it will never exist.

Could You please write/explain, what's Your
solution to that social aspect?

I'm not sure what Stephan meant when he wrote that, but I think there
is a difference in having the kind of workflows that are possible and
any protection the system offers you.
I think Apple goes too far in protecting the user even though that
makes iOS a pretty safe platform, it harms the options for a workflow.
I think the right direction is to introduce capabilities in Haiku, but
it is still too early to be thinking about that. We first must have a
R1 release out there.

Kind regards,

Mark

--
Spangalese for beginners

`Halley mak ranfuer.'
`Your infant has swallowed my grenade.'

References:
- [haiku] Re: As the Saying goes, what goes Around, ...
  - From: Martin Vahi

[haiku] Re: As the Saying goes, what goes Around, ...

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