Re: permission() bug?

[Andries Brouwer <aebr _at_ xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Feb 01, 2004 at 01:14:57PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:

> >  the fix for permission() that makes it compliant with POSIX.1-2001
> 
> Question is: should we fix it?  I'm not aware of any bug reports against
> this behaviour, and there is the possibility that changing it now will
> break some applications.

Quite apart from this particular case, the general answer to such questions
should be Yes.

It must not be the case that Linux is roughly speaking POSIX-conforming
but deviates in a thousand obscure ways.

When a deviation is noticed, changing to be POSIX-conforming should
be the default action. Of course, some POSIX requirements are rather
unfortunate, and in individual cases there can be a good reason
not to change. Such individual cases should be discussed and well documented.

In a case like this, where it is clear that Linux is buggy, the bug
should just be fixed.  Of course it is your call to choose between
fixing a bug and keeping a stable interface.  If you choose the latter
this must be fixed in 2.7.

(By the way - 2.0.34 and 2.2.19 do not have this bug, 2.4.18 has.)


Andries
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