On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 11:11:41 GMT, christos@zoulas.com (Christos Zoulas)
wrote:
> In article <1foieax.xdwxt41q3zbnuM@[10.0.12.137]>,
> Emmanuel Dreyfus <manu@netbsd.org> wrote:
> >> i believe that if i say "the file should *not* be deleted" by setting
> >> a flag, that should have a higher value than "i used rm -rf to really
> >> delete all the files".
> >
> >I beleive no user should be able to prevent root from deleting his
> >files with uchg. If -ff is needed, we will end up with scripts that
> >always have -ff, I'm not sure this is a good practice.
> 
> I prefer the ff or even -F to force removing the extra bits before
> unlinking. There are places where this behavior is desired, and others
> where it is not, so we must be able to choose what we mean from the
> command line.

I'm surprised no one mentioned compatibility.  Before we invent a flag or
decide a behavior, wouldn't it be worthwhile to examine, say, Solaris or
FreeBSD to see what they do?  They must do what they do for a reason, and
compatibility, if not supreme, is good.  

Having said that, I don't run either of the aforementioned systems....

--jkl