Not a terribly coherent discourse by Tim B.Lee. On the one hand, he wants you to run apps downloaded off the internet in your browser. On the other hand, he wants the user to have root. There's not even a whelk's chance in a supernova that I will ever run a browser as root. I assume that Tim's OK with that as a security stance, but it then follows that browser apps can't have root, and if you're a non-tech-savvy user, if your apps don't have root, then you don't have root.

Focusing a bit more on the whole root access thing, I think it would be well to remember that we tried the open root thing already, and it turned out to be a security disaster for normal users. I think it's a good thing that the mainstream computing platforms (Windows, MacOSX, iOS) are trying a new approach. I also think that it's a very good thing that there are more open solutions, such as Android (which, just to be clear, is also a mainstream choice) and Linux, that allow us to see what can be done with more open access. Then the closed platforms can see how to go about providing that functionality in a more secure manner for less tech-savvy users.