[Sugar-devel] Future of Zero Sugar

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Aleksey Lim wrote:
> So, I have
> strong intension to switching development focus from core team,
> which develops sucrose - glucose(core) and fructose(some core
> activities) to wide range of developers/doers thus some kind of
> decentralization of development process.

I agree. I think this has been a central part of the Sugar design
philosophy from the beginning.  I think your message is very much on the
right track.

[snip]
>   * I hope to see many shell forks with implemented features like new
>     sugar themes(wallpapers support, new icons etc.), Actions view
>     implementations from non-core development/doers. The benefit they
>     will have after 0install integration is more useful method to share
>     these forks - just a regular entity on Activity Library that brings
>     new shell to user environment

I don't think this part will work as "a regular entity on Activity
Library", for security reasons.  Any "Activity" that hooks so deeply into
the shell is no longer safe to run.  It is running with the full authority
of the user and can violate the user's privacy or interfere with the
user's actions.  In orders to encourage users to become doers, Sugar is
designed to make sure that Activities are always safe to run (thanks to
Bitfrost/Rainbow protections).

I would of course support an effort to "wall off" parts of the shell in a
secure fashion, but so far almost no work has been done in that direction.

--Ben

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