[R-SIG-Mac] The new GUI: help font; root

[Simon Urbanek]

On Nov 19, 2004, at 1:14 PM, Jussi Piitulainen wrote:

> There is a prominent button for letting R use root privileges. This is
> really scary. Please, could the code in question be removed? Not just
> hidden but removed. Don't risk the stability of my computer for some
> convenience. (What is it for? To mess with the kernel?)

Thomas nicely explained the reason behind the button and where your 
seem to misunderstand the way such things work and the implications.

Just for completeness, technically what happens is that the R_system 
call is authorized to run as root if authenticated as long as the lock 
is unlocked (pretty much like in all Apple applications BTW). It does 
not change the privileges of R.app itself. The main reason for this 
functionality is that there is no way to run R.app as root for 
system-wide tasks and "sudo R" does not give you necessarily the same 
environment (let alone GUI for package installation ;)).

Cheers,
Simon