This model makes sense to me and seems quite reasonable.
I presume you are referring to Fuchsia, which I understand to be successor to Android.
Fuchsia uses this system. So does Genode which - as a newer albeit less mature system - has interesting ideas on system security. I am convinced there is an excellent opportunity for Haiku and Genode to cross pollinate ideas.
As am armchair follower of OS matters it would be handy if somebody more knowledgeable could outline whether this “capability based” model might be applicable to Haiku security without a full-blown multiuser experience. Both Fuchsia and Genode are targeting mobile phones which are almost invariably single user devices.
this is offtopic, but please for god sakes, let your children get into trouble, do dangerous things, fall down and be uncomfortable. If you have such laws to make such things criminally offensive, remove the laws. You are raising a generation of naïve useless people. Stop it.
If you doubt what I am saying, read a lot more on developmental psychology.
Also, a computer is not in anyway responsible for the child. It is a tool, no different than a hammer.
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I’ve never tried to program a hammer. Not sure how easy it will be.
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I have two sons, and I am about to introduce something else then an iPad for the oldest.
For now it is under full guidance and multiuser is not required. But when they get older they will of course get their own computers, and I think I will choose an OS with multiuser support, just to be able to set up limited and more controllable accounts for the kids. We will as parents guide them, but they will over time be using the computer alone.
My hope is that I will be able to introduce them to Haiku, just as my dad introduced me to C64.
For me this is not just a question about security, but to introduce kids to a safe environment where they can play and later learn - perhaps even code.
But first, before getting developers side tracked. Let them finish R1.
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very few people share one machine for many users, and multi user doesnt do much to protect the machine or the data
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Do you have a source for this? It is not at all uncommon. My parents do it (why would they need two computers when one is more than enough?). My school did it when I was there (we had maybe 5 computers in the classroom, and only because our teacher went through a lot of efforts organizing cookie sales to get some moneym and then finding very cheap older computers). My university of course did it a lot (one compulter per student in classrooms, but we would move from one classroom to another and not always sit at the same desk). My cousin works as a mechanic, and in the shop they have a single computer where everyone goes once a day or so to check their pro emails. They don’t really need a computer room there.
And this is just a few examples from my personal life, in a country were computers are reasonably affordable and common.
Yes, multi-user does not necessarily provide a fully isolated and secure environment for each user. But it at least allows people to have a different wallpaper, their own important shortcuts on the desktop, and their files organized the way they want. That’s the minimum we should provide. And if you don’t want to use the feature, that’s fine. Have you noticed that Android phones have multiuser support? It’s there but it’s not enabled by default, and quite unobtrusive. So if you don’t need it, you can just completely ignore it.
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I never had multi-user experience at family, school, university or work. At home I always had personal PC, at school/university each student sit at separate PC and usually use USB drive to save work. University PCs used network boot and all changes are lost after reboot.
Is it possible to implement support for multi-user mode using modules?
I mean the following: by default, the system is installed without support for multi-user mode, if multi-user mode is required, either during installation or after, we install the required packages to implement multi-user mode.
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In my case (in two universisites I went to as well as in high school), we had a network-mounted home directory. So you could customize things however you wanted, it was stored in your homedir and that would be mounted when you log in (this was available for Windows, and also for Linux at the second university where my engineering school was).
Why would you do that? Multiuser is just creating an extra home directory for another user. If you need it, you could activate it by, you know, creating another user. And if you don’t, well, you just don’t create another user, and things will be just as before.
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I am not strong in these matters.
It seems to me that a single-user operating system is less demanding on resources than a multi-user one. I could be wrong… I would not want to change anything in my computer (buy more memory), just because Haiku has the possibility of a multi-user mode.
On any remotely modern computer(except maybe embedded devices), the feature being available is negligible in terms of system resources. You’d have a harder time buying memory in such a small increment to make that difference.
We already support posix multiuser, so whatever ressources it drains it does already.
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If this is true, I’m really happy!
I cannot imagine any major resource usage being added due to improved multi-user support, beyond a bit more disk space for the added code for a secure login application and maybe home directory management.
As nephele says most of the infrastructure is in place for multiple users so it is maybe already incurring a minor cost in the kernel. Any secure login application can be opt-in and maybe even in an additional package which would then not even use disk space for those who do not want it.
To add my two cents on the various discussions I think capabilities are very cool and inline with BeOS and Haiku philosophy. I also think looking at how Android and iOS do things make some sense, except maybe making it a bit easier for applications to share files or access common files (with the right user-granted “capability”.) There is plenty to think about and experiment with, but I don’t think we can afford to spend a lot of time on it before R1, as I have said before.
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Well guys, how about coming up with a feature list of what a new modern and evolved system should look like that surpasses existing current technology?
Think about it for two minutes and make a list taking into account your technical knowledge and how you would like it to be to make your life easier, safe and practical.
So that this list can be useful for drawing up feasibility drafts…
Files stored in “Trash” was recoverable at my school…
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Oh no - thanks. For me it’s the worst.
But I would not dispute on it as it is leading back to clicking vs issueing commands by pipeline in a terminal world - so generally no consensus.
On a posix system if I’m an admin user on the system I will never get message “you are not authorized …” on files which copied/created withn the same user meanwhile on windows I met these situations in case ntfs.
Also I can sípmly overview pewrmissions by listing files/directories. There is no more simple stuff.
LOL
Thanks - you could make me laugh with this line
against it I’m spending my sorrow days I have actually.
I’m grateful - really – no sarcasm at all. 
It was extrtaordinary - or most modern way : it was AWESOME ! 
.
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I know many people who are against funding the military because they think it is pointless.
Some people think the billions of taxpayers money which was channeled directly and indirectly into u*ix derivates and into their userland development is pointless, considering the harm and mess they made in the last 50 years and counting.
Indirectly you pay for every major OS, but it make u*ixes only cheaper, not free.
Consider this.
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