>       The inum displayed by ls -i on a symlink is the same as the file
>       to which it points, or the inum of the current directory if the symlink
>       doesn't point to an existing file.

> This is not a `bug' per se; it was an explicit design decision in 4.4.

This change seems unorthogonal. `ls -Li' should've been used
if the inode of the pointed to file was wanted.  Looks like
4.4 designers want to take away the `filehood' of a symlink.
Why?  So as to store the link data in the parent directory's
data blocks?  Sigh....