On Sun, Apr 11, 2004 at 11:07:34AM -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> At least for user names, the issue is ambiguity in programs that limit 
> the length -- note that utmp.h, for example, limits user names to 8 
> characters.
> 
> That said, I'd really like it if the that would change, but it could 
> break backwards binary compatibility in a major way.  (A quick grep 
> shows about 40 files in /usr/src that include utmp.h -- and I didn't 
> even try to look at pkgsrc.)

Just FYI: FreeBSD changed this from 8 to 16 going from FreeBSD 2.2 to
FreeBSD 3.0.  My memory pegs the user impact as slightly noticable, but
not really a big deal in practice.

Eivind.