[Portland] xdg-su -u option

[Jeremy White]

> So I would suggest to leave the xdg-su out of the picture because
> eventually distributions (I can't speak for Red Hat but my suggestion is
> to stop shipping consolehelper at some point) can and will stop shipping
> su helpers. Including xdg-su is saying is just legitimizing bad
> practices to ISV's. It's just wrong.
> 
> Please don't include xdg-su.

I'm sorry, but I have to object strenuously to this.

Today, for example, the only way to create a screen
saver on a system is to create a link in /usr/X11R6/lib/screensavers.
And that requires root level access or an xdg-su.

Now you can argue all day until you're blue in the face
that it's sick and wrong (and I'm not necessarily going
to disagree with you), but I feel the great strength of
xdg-utils will come from solving real world problems.

What would you have an ISV do?  "I'm sorry, we can't give
you that feature because it doesn't agree with our morals." ?

The longer term solution to the problem you are concerned with
is to have increasingly granual tools
(e.g. xdg-set-screensaver) which don't necessarily require
root level access.  Patches for such interfaces will always be welcome.

But we have had too much purity and high mindedness,
in my not particularly humble opinion.

</soapbox>

Cheers,

Jeremy