Re: Rejected Requirements

   From: Dylan Barrell <dbarrell@opentext.ch>
   Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 10:55:12 +-200

   What is the point of having a lock if it can be revoked by anybody? You might as well not bother!

In some settings, that's entirely acceptable.

Realistically, if I'm in a group of a half dozen people who are trusted
to edit a file, then I'm obviously trusted a lot (since I could totally
mess up the file if I wanted to).  Locking can be an advisory thing
that says ``I'm editing the file now, so everyone else should wait.''
But if I'm allowed to edit the file, and I know that the lock has
been there a while, I might as well remove it.

There are also those who think that passwords and file permissions shouldn't
be used to control who can write to files.

You implicitly trust me to write to your email inbox, right?  In fact,
you trust every single person who has internet access.  And in
most cases (except for spam), the mail you get is mail you want.
Unless you get a *lot* of spam, only a small percentage of your mail is
indeed spam.

So trusting the people who have accounts at your site isn't really
that big a leap of faith.

Received on Saturday, 31 May 1997 03:24:44 UTC