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Computers attempted various guises of "can't we all just get along". At one time, it was cooperative multitasking and memory management. Programs were supposed to behave themselves and get out of one anothers' way. Except that, due to bugs or malice, some didn't. We called this world "DOS" (or pre OSX Macs). Microsoft still attempts to allow vendors to install programs whereever the hell they want, and to, pretty please, not overwrite other program's infrastructure or system-level DLLs. Yeah. Right. In the Linux world, we've solved this problem, if done right, though distro-managed, well, distributions. Any program can be included if it meets qualifications (generally limited to licensing requirements), and a sponsor steps up. Once included, the package gets the benefits of being included in the package lists, distributed over archive mirrors, and included in bugtracking and support systems. However it's also got to play along with the requirements of Debian Policy as to how it behaves on a system. The proper way to address the issues of app privileges is to control privileges centrally on the device and grant them to specific apps. If a user doesn't wish to give an app, say, addressbook access, then they can deny it (or feed it a bogus addressbook). The app vendor can decide what they're going to do at this point, but what they can't do is override the user's explicitly stated limits. |