Scott Reynolds <scottr@Plexus.COM> writes:

> Could you elaborate on that?  (I thought you said that all of our software
> uses dot-locking, exclusively.)

All the NetBSD-supplied software does.

Other packages might or might not.  Movemail, for example, uses flock(), and
a popper I have my hands on does as well.

> As Mouse correctly points out above, it also introduces a potential for
> deadlock should some other piece of software, be it elm, procmail,
> fetchmail, an imapd, etc. try locking in the reverse order.  Or do you
> propose that we "fix" all of those, too?

Not really, since if you can't get both locks you back out of the one you
did get, wait, and try again.  That should prevent the deadlocks if the
programs retry at different times.

--Michael