Shortening the rope

There are many things which could be said to be a part of the Unix philosophy. One of those, certainly, is that the operating system should stay out of the user's way to the greatest extent possible, even if said user is intent on doing something harmful. There is a classic quote attributed to Eric Allman: "Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure." Recently, some attempts by developers to shorten that rope a bit have run into criticism; click below (subscribers only) for the full article.

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