Why does X run as root?

[Andrew Clayton]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:49:33 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 12:28:23PM -0400, Chris Ball wrote:
> 
> > I think "run X as user Xorg if you're on KMS" would be a fine
> > F15Feature to aim for.  Ubuntu's been working on it too:
> 
> Of course, doing so just turns it from "Running code as X gives you 
> root" to "Running code as X gives you root the moment someone types
> in a root password, even if they're on a different terminal". I
> accept that this is a barrier, but the only real solution is to have
> each X session run as a different user - and that requires Linux to
> gain revoke() support.

Which unfortunately seems to be a really hard nut to crack. People have
worked on it in the past. But AFAIK no one is _currently_ working on it.

Andrew