D12795: Re-allow running Dolphin as the root user (but still not using sudo)

[Martin Flöser]

graesslin added a comment.


  In D12795#265587 <https://phabricator.kde.org/D12795#265587>, @ngraham wrote:
  
  > - "You broke my workflow using `sudo dolphin` to edit root-owned files."
  > - "You broke my use of a root GUI session in $DISTRO."
  
  
  These are good reactions. Not so good reactions are sending hate mails to developers. If that happens I cannot take them serious. I tried to look up one of the incidents, but I cannot find it on google+ anymore. This has nothing to do that we change something users dislike. We do that constantly. Any change angers users. You will someday also notice this. You are relatively young in the KDE business. With time you will notice that you do changes that angers your users. You do something which improves things and it angers some other users. That's something which happens and we have to live with. We just cannot please all users. The important question is how you react to the change: explain the use cases you have or just let out your anger at random persons. In the latter case it's to me a clear sign that you don't have real arguments.
  
  I did the change in kate with the information about sudoedit which motivated the change in dolphin AFAIK. This broke peoples workflows. It broke it really hard. Nevertheless the overwhelming feedback I got was: "wow awesome I didn't know that sudoedit exists, that's much better than my workflow before." It's totally fine to question users' workflows. With the change in kate I questioned the workflow of running the gui to edit as root in general. That would also be the answer to the first question. You need to edit files as root? Use sudoedit.
  
  Now instead of trying to support the users' workflow of running the complete session as root I would question it. Why do they run it as root? What's the real usecase they have for it? Maybe there is no need, maybe they don't need it and their workflow improves when we can suggest them something better? If I get a request for a new feature I normally ask what's the actual usecase for it. Very often I have a feeling things are requested out of ignorance on how else something can be achieved. We don't need to follow and implement everything in the sake of usability. Usability is also questioning the users and provide the best workflow for them. And that might not be the workflow they are used to. I question that running a session as root is the best workflow for the issues user's try to solve with it.
  
  Yes I used to do that 15 years ago as well. I logged into the suse session as root to do stuff. That was before I learned about sudo, before polkit existed. Workflows change and that's good so. I learned that using Kubuntu with sudo is much easier to use than logging into as root. It was new to me, I wasn't used to the concept of not having a root user. But my workflows improved. It improved because the distribution took away a part I used to have.

REPOSITORY
  R318 Dolphin

REVISION DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/D12795

To: ngraham, markg, elvisangelaccio, #dolphin
Cc: cfeck, elvisangelaccio, mmustac, Fuchs, markg, graesslin, nicolasfella, zzag, kfm-devel, emmanuelp, spoorun, navarromorales, isidorov, firef, andrebarros
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