[GRASS5] file ownership after installation

[Hal Mueller]

At 9:06 AM -0600 10/19/01, Roger Miller wrote:
>I don't know of anything in the GRASS5.0 distribution that needs to be
>owned by root to work correctly.  I think in most systems if something
>doesn't need to be owned by root, then it shouldn't be owned by root.

I don't understand this--I thought the purpose of root was to own the 
system, so that individual users can't tamper.

>In my setup (Linux 2.4) the /usr/local/grass5 directory itself is owned by
>root and users have only read and execute access to anything in the tree.
>As a result, the source is protected from tampering, even by the
>unpriviledged user who owns the files.

Who is the owner of the files?  What stops that owner from 
inadvertently damaging the directory?

I can't recall any Unix system I've ever worked on where root 
_didn't_ routinely own the system and addon software.