From: glen mccready 
  To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 09:14:24 -0400

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
Forwarded-by: Rob Mayoff <mayoff@tkg.com>

An excerpt from the GNU su man page (insert GPL here):

Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman)

Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the
rest.  For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to
seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and
keeping it secret from everyone else.  (I was able to thwart this coup
and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I
wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)

However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone.  Under the usual su
mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with
the ordinary users, he can tell the rest.  The "wheel group" feature
would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.

I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers.  If you are
used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you
might find this idea strange at first.