Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that there are going to be users who want to do that (i.e., running all the time in root). I mean, there have been a very few times that I do that.
I suspect most of your hard-core users, who are wanting to do things that most users don’t, will want to go to the terminal window and run the UNIX commands, instead... LOL...
The *vast and overwhelming majority* of Macintosh users (and even the power users) simply don’t run in root. It’s really not necessary. And..., like I said, most users, even if they wanted to run in root, probably couldn’t figure out how to do so... :-)
It’s just not going to happen. And remember, the Macs have been around for a very long time, the user base keeps expanding and the Mac OS X operating system has been around for a long time, too. These things were “warned about” before, but they are just not happening.
It will be another five years, 10 years — and I’ll guarantee you that there will be people saying, “Well, you just wait; it will happen...” and we will be waiting and nothing will happen...
There’s very few time you want to do it because you’re smart. I’m talking the users that are the bane of everyone in the industry, the idjits, the people that use the CD tray as a cup holder, the ones that double click on every stupid thing, the ones that actually install emoticon apps (which of course always have crap with them).
Not hardcore users, they actually know JS. Not the crowd I’m talking about.
Yes the vast majority of Mac user don’t run as root. Already acknowledged that. Most users will be fine. On Windows most users are fine. It’s the dumb ones that make the problems. It’s the dumb ones that are going to run as root even though they don’t have to, even though there’s no good reason to, and double click on the icon they got from the HR person that says ILoveYou and give themselves a virus.
If Macs take over it will happen. I figure if you get up over about 20 to 25% of the desktop space you’ll start getting the influx of dipsticks. The user base keeps expanding but you’re still in single digits. Like I said, wait for it.
Remember, nobody ever went broke under estimating the intelligence of the average person. The most successful virus ever required people to either enable the stupidest feature ever or double on an obviously suspect icon, and 10% of all the computers connected to the net got it. Dumb people are out there, and if the Macs keep increasing the user base eventually they’re going to buy Macs. It’s gonna happen, you just need enough total users for the dipsticks to reach critical mass.