I found another bug in Ubuntu... It actually allows you to install the system to a hard disk! This means that not only does it leave the system open to 'sudo rm -fr /' commands being run accidentally, but anyone passing by with an active electro-magnet could corrupt the entire system. Other distros (Knoppix, etc) circumvent this by being a live-CD-only distribution. Ubuntu already has live-CD functionality, so all we need to do is just cut out all the installable stuff, and it's good to go! Right? We could also include a requirement of lead shielding in the chassis.

..end sarcastic portion of update..

> To me it's not a security feature at all; it's more akin to the safeguards 
> in place to prevent accidental launch of nuclear weapons. How would it 
> be destructive to Ubuntu's reason for existence?

I obviously don't really know what all is involved in the physical act of firing a nuke, but if the movies are to be believed, it takes the right person giving the proper authorization (sudo) and giving the command to fire (rm -fr).. Usually it takes more than one person doing it at the same time, but short of forcing two different admin users to confirm file deletions so that it lives up to this standard, at some point the engineers make the determination that any more safeguards preventing execution would be too much (even unsafe), because after all the weapons (commands) are there to be used, not look pretty. 

This single feature is not destructive by itself, the precedent it sets is. Users will expect the system to save them from themselves doing anything potentially destructive, citing this 'bug' as 'proof' just like everyone here did ("Sun is doing it why shouldn't we?" is, I'm sorry, a glaring logical fallacy). 

> There are many things that people, even good people, should do, but don't. 
> Is "they deserve what they get" the kind of attitude Ubuntu wants to project?

So upon installation, should the disk partitioner not actually allow a user to format a partition that has a certain amount of files with 'last modified' dates of today's date, for fear that the user is actually choosing the wrong partition to format? I bet a lot more people have made that mistake than have accidentally run 'sudo rm -fr /'... And the answer is still no, the partitioner shouldn't just refuse to format the partition it was told to format during install because the user didn't run it with the --actually_format_stuff flag, or something.

Someone always deserves a broken foot when they ask themselves, "Hmm, I wonder what will happen if I drop this bowling ball on my foot?" and then does it. Even if they meant to drop it an inch to the left of their foot, and not right on it. It's not the bowling ball manufacturer's fault for making a bowling ball that hurts your foot when dropped upon it. Nail guns don't come with built-in sensors that detect living tissue in front of it and refuse to fire if there is. You're just not supposed to aim it at yourself, the safety button (sudo, -f, etc) is considered to be enough.

The Ubuntu home page says "Ubuntu is designed with security in mind" and that it's made to be easy to install and get up and running on most computers, for free. When did Ubuntu become the distro made for inexperienced users, or self-proclaimed 'experienced users' who don't think things through all the way because it saves people from themselves? Where is this claimed? I don't see that in the "Code of Conduct," "What is Ubuntu?", anywhere. 

Nowhere does it say "we strive to eventually implement every lame Windows-type security 'feature' that is already proven ineffective, because Ubuntu deep down really just wants to be Windows some day." It actually says the opposite, boasting cutting-edge security features, not ineffective ones.

> Is that even how we should treat other people? I don't understand what your goal is with Ubuntu. 

This isn't a person treating another person like anything, this is a computer doing what it's told (or rather not, it seems). 

> What you're calling for sounds more like it belongs in a distro like...Slackware? 
> Gentoo? Please explain what you're trying to achieve here. :)

Again, show me the page that states that Ubuntu strives to be the distro for users to be saved from their own ignorance, or lack of attention to detail. I see "built with security in mind," and "easy to get up and running," and "works on a variety of hardware out of the box," and "Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge. You do not pay any licensing fees. You can download, use and share Ubuntu with your friends, family, school or business for absolutely nothing," but nowhere do I see "It's for beginners and scatterbrains because they couldn't possibly mess anything up! It even saves experts from their own destructive type-os! Also it makes you feel loved like no other OS can!"

> Who are these inexperienced-yet-diligent users of which you speak?

All but one company I've worked for in the past 10 years demanded full daily backups of all critical systems, and I can guarantee you the people making these executive decisions were not experienced Linux users. 

> Maybe you'd be happier with something like Arch Linux?

Of all the things said in this thread, "you need to go use a different distro," Is the least useful and community-minded, and least humane/forgiving thing of them all. You can't claim to be for the OS treating users with 'compassion' or 'respect' or whatever, and then say stuff like this.

> There's protecting the user against pasting malicious commands, and 
> there's protecting the user from the results of an unfortunate typo. Even 
> experienced users make stupid mistakes like this 
> (http://www.justpasha.org/folk/rm.html)

Key words being "stupid mistakes." If you actually read that story, they had a backup but they only did them once a week, and they didn't have anyone on staff that knew how to recover from it. That isn't the rm command's fault, it's the company/engineer's fault. Ubuntu doesn't need to be built to prevent companies that hire uninformed engineers from losing their data. You might as well let it refuse to power the computer on because the user might have plugged it into an outlet with the wrong voltage.