This really bothers me when I see it. I've had coworkers who used Linux. Like you say, IT mostly left them alone. They had root and were free to install anythin

This really bothers me when I see it. I've had coworkers who used Linux. Like you say, IT mostly left them alone. They had root and were free to install anything. That seems like a huge security hole. Keeping Linux, especially desktop Linux, patched is non-trivial, and I wouldn't leave that up to the average web developer.