flatpak/system-helper
Philip Withnall 2ae9cfd950 dir: Allow app updates without consulting parental controls
Currently, app installs and updates are treated the same from the point
of view of the parental controls permissions checks. This was intended so
that parents have to re-check each app update to make sure it’s still
appropriate for their children.

In practice, though, parents are not that hands-on, and there are a lot of
regular app updates. The tradeoff between app updates (which bring
security fixes and features) and not changing so much in apps that a
parent’s initial assessment of their suitability for their child is
probably skewed the wrong way. We should be preferring updates (in
particular, so we get security updates), and assuming that if an app is
OK to begin with, it’s probably not going to change so radically as to
become unsuitable for a child with an update.

As a data point, Google Play’s parental controls will allow apps to be
automatically updated even if a child account can’t install new apps.

So, implement this by splitting the existing
`org.freedesktop.Flatpak.override-parental-controls` polkit action in
two: the existing action for _installs_, and a new
`org.freedesktop.Flatpak.override-parental-controls-update` action for
_updates_. `FlatpakDir` is changed to use the appropriate action
depending on whether an app is being installed from scratch or updated.
The default policies for the two actions differ.

Users/Distros who disagree with the new default policy can provide their
own polkit rules to change the behaviour of
`override-parental-controls-update` so that it matches
`override-parental-controls`, to bring back the old behaviour.

Signed-off-by: Philip Withnall <pwithnall@gnome.org>

Fixes: https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/5552
2025-03-31 13:47:28 +00:00
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2022-10-24 16:12:14 +01:00