RFC: Autostart spec, second draft

[Thiago Macieira]

seventh guardian wrote:
>> >The admin can put a .desktop file in the users home directory but
>> > that they can't write to or delete, no?
>>
>>There are only two ways of doing that: making it immutable by the
>>filesystem (ext2/ext3), or making the user unable to write to the
>>directory.
>>
>>The first option may not be universal on all filesystems. The second
>>options excludes user-defined autostarts.
>
>Not quite. You can have several desktop files, so you can define your
> own autostarts. Except that you can't override the admin-defined one..

No, that's not it.

I had said that a user can override an admin autostart by placing a file 
with the same name in his $XDG_CONFIG_HOME directory with Hidden=true.

Mike then suggested that the admin place a file in the users' (all of 
them, btw) $XDG_CONFIG_HOME dir with no permission to be modified, so 
that he couldn't override the option.

What I wrote is that I don't see a way of doing that without either:
- making it impossible for the user to have his own autostarts
or
- using the non-portable solution of immutable files

However, I've just come to the conclusion that it is indeed possible, by 
using the sticky bit (+t) on those dirs, just like /tmp: the user can't 
rename or remove the files he doesn't own, but he's free to create, 
rename, remove any files of his own.

The remaining drawback is that you have to do that for each and every user 
in the system.

>Ok, if you want to add to the spec admin-mandated starts that run WITH
>ADMIN-privileges, that's ok with me. But note, this is a user autostart
> dir. The admin shouldn't use this dir to force some programs to be run
> by the user, unless the user wants to. There are other means for him to
> automatically run programs..

I know. Which is why I don't think this is a strong feature at all.

So let the matter drop. My questions have been clarified.

-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
    PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
    E067 918B B660 DBD1 105C  966C 33F5 F005 6EF4 5358

4. And æfter se scieppend ingelogode, he wrát "cenn", ac eala! se 
rihtendgesamnung andswarode "cenn: ne wát hú cennan 'eall'. Ástynt."
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