Why does Apple provide the “Ignore ownership on this volume” setting

permission

This seems like a total abuse to the Unix file system ownership principals. The only reason I can think of that Apple may have implemented this is that non-technical users were probably fighting issues with ownership and Apple wanted a simple solution. For the technical user (i.e. someone who understands Unix), I see no reason to ever enable this. Am I missing something?

Best Answer

It's for read/write access on shared drives.

For example, if you have a shared USB drive the permissions will most likely not match your particular credentials. For you to read/write to that drive, Apple gives you this functionality.

Additionally, given that you must be an Admin to enable/disable this, it doesn't exactly "abuse" the UNIX file system ownership principals.