[Patch] #29984 Change file permission using octal numbers

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

As you are on this, may I allow myself to propose the following (integrating 
kiosk system usage):

Am Samstag, 17. Mai 2003 13:22 schrieb Waldo Bastian:
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> On Saturday 17 May 2003 13:13, Tim Jansen wrote:
> > But how can you know which information is important and which is not? Who
> > tells you that you don't do something wrong when you don't enter the
> > right number into that field? You can not ignore it as long as you don't
> > understand the concept, especially for something like permissions.
>
> I usually don't change the parts that I don't understand. That works for
> me.

Hehe. Me too. 

But I fear that there should be help for those who don't understand the 
concept of permissions (e.g. Joe user in a company):
_permission styles_
This allows to (optionally) leave out this irritating matrix of check points 
but reduce it to a drop-down list offering*, e.g. 

standard       (-> 0640, users)
secure         (-> 0400, users)
personal work  (-> 0600, team)
team work      (-> 0660, team)
...

Permission styles could be added and deleted in a separate dialog, as usual, 
but might be controlled by the kiosk system (no editing allowed). This way joe 
user could be restricted and not able to make "keep_secret.doc" worldreadable 
or a malicious script executable.

These styles might even make an expert's life simpler :)

The styles could have [don't care] for certain settings, like group id, so 
they could be used together with the fine traditional permission usage:
switch to style "public" won't have an effect on the group setting.

* I have no idea how this could be integrated with ACLs later, will leave this 
to the experts

Sorry for interrupting but I thought this ides to be appropiate for this 
discussion

Thank you for your attention

Friedrich

PS: Problem will be to automatically detect the style from the actual 
settings. Seems there can't be styles that could be mapped onto each other. 
:(