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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

Not if I have anything to say about it. I want programs on my computing device to be able to access files and roam the internet at free will. In fact, I insist on it.

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Yes, who needs protected memory? DOS programs were awesome. Any program can overwrite any other! We just ask their developers to make them behave nicely

Unix file protection with owner/group is OK too. But would you create additional users and groups for running software? With OpenBSD’s pf, you can add network rules for each user.

Please read my comment again, it was about access to files and the internet. Protected memory is not related to that.

The analogy is with protected memory. Files need to be protected, too - from programs overwriting each other’s files, no?

Now I understand the misunderstanding here. I'm fine with protecting everything by user-chosen permissions. As long as the end user has full control over them, file permissions, access control lists, and fine-grained internet controls are perfectly fine. My operating system has all of that. What I rigorously reject is when the makers of an operating system restrict access without giving the end user full control over everything. That should in my opinion be prohibited. The user's full control must also be easy to exert to prevent malicious compliance.

So maybe I misunderstood you and there is no disagreement at all. Of course, I think file permissions and protected memory can make sense.

When you said "to be able to .. at free will", I (and maybe many others) assumed that to mean that you wanted no way to limit them at all, to always give the programs free reign no matter what, and that's the part I disagreed with, but it sounds like that's not really what you meant now.

At the same time it sounds like you may have skipped over OP's "by default" phrasing.

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