Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions

I am aware of the toggle setting, which was cleverly hidden in a non-default page of the application settings dialog. The error message does not mention that this behavior can be disabled (short of editing the code), much less where to find the controls. It would be reasonable to assume that having gone out of their way to block such behavior the developers would make their restrictions as difficult as possible to circumvent; ergo, many wouldn't even go looking for such an option.

Furthermore, while you and I might not have any issues locating it without help, that would not be true for many of Okular's other users. A surprising number of computer users find themselves intimidated by standard configuration dialogs, and those unfamiliar with (or insecure in their knowledge regarding) software design could easily find themselves wondering whether disabling the restrictions might have unwanted, and possible irreversible, side-effects.

In short, the default assumption should be that users both know what they are doing and have all the necessary authority to do it, unless they deliberately disavow such knowledge or authority. On that basis, the default setting should have been to ignore any restriction requests present in the document, aside from possibly displaying them unobtrusively to the user.

"That's utterly trivial compared to, say, figuring out how to make Gnome honor my intent as a user to respond to single right-mouse clicks rather than double left-mouse clicks."

Perhaps so, but there is a world of difference between presenting a default interface which, while full-featured, may not match a specific user's preferences, and going out of one's way to completely disable standard functionality.