File permissions and ownership in the /Applications directory

Hello,
I've noticed that the application files in /Applications have a mix of the following ownerships:
root:admin
myusername:admin
501:admin
I understand that 501 refers to the first user created, however the current username that I use is not the first one that was created.
I find that often when I am deleting an app, I am prompted for a password.
I also just tried to edit a text file in an application subdir and could not save the changes due to lack of permission. The owner was 501 and I had to use sudo to chown it.
What is the ownership supposed to be on all of these files?
-Travis

Travis B wrote:
So the real oddity is that there are thing in there that are owned by 501 and tbarth? They should all be root?
No. Only those applications that were installed by a correctly designed installer should be owned by root. That is a fairly small subset of all current applications. Most applications will be owned by whomever dragged the application into the Applications folder.
Should I chown them all to root:admin? Or root:root? Or just leave it all as is...
I think you should leave them. Regardless of who owns them, you don't need to be creating any text files in there.
Please be clear on this fact: if you do any sort of chown or chmod on anything in /Applications you are running a distinct risk of rendering your system inoperative.

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