[Gllug] Wheel Group

[Bruce Richardson]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 10:17:39AM +0100, Richard wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Mick Farmer wrote:
> 
> > Dear GLLUGers,
> >
> > On some flavours of *NIX, you need to me a member of the
> > wheel group in order to "su" to the root account.
> 
> Ahem...
> 
> http://hegel.ittc.ukans.edu/topics/linux/man-pages/man1/su.1.html#toc4

From a technical pov, GNU su supports PAM and you can use PAM to enforce
a wheel group restriction.

The gaping hole in RMS' "users versus admins" argument, and the MIT
example that he cites as justification,  is that he was part of a highly
skilled peer group that had collectively developed the tools and OS that
they used.  Not only did they view security restrictions as a violation
of their rights to the system that they "owned" but they were so skilled
at hacking that system that security measures were hopeless in any case.
People accepted that they couldn't hide anything and knew that
everything they did would be subject to ruthless peer review.  It only
worked because it was a community of peers.

That same community was actively contemptuous of anybody who didn't have
their skills and knowledge, not considering them valid users at all.
RMS is very much a child of that group and his vision of a utopia for
equal users only works if every user has the skills required to
participate on an equal footing.  It gives no thought at all to those
users who don't even want to be part of the IT peer group and who just
want to use the system as a tool for whatever is their real task.  Can
you imagine what it would be like at a university where the computer
system was run like that?  The general body of students would revolt
against a system where their project work and personal data was hostage
to the whims of the geek minority.

RMS seems to have forgotten, in his nostalgia for the lost computing
Eden of MIT, the humiliations and pranks that his elite peer group used
to inflict on anybody who tried to use the sytem but was judged unworthy
and taking up valuable time on "their" system.

-- 
Bruce

It is impolite to tell a man who is carrying you on his shoulders that
his head smells.
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