> Since the concept was (according to McKusick) introduced so that local
> filesystems would behave the same as files systems mounted from lame
> (my word not his) systems like NT?

Eeee-YUUCK.  What's next, getting rid of hard links to that local file systems
will behave the same at NT?  Limiting filenames to 8.3 monocase characters so
that local filesystems will behave the same as DOS?  Give me a break.

I can see making changes to *meet* POSIX or other standard requirements.  I
CANNOT see making changes to keep BSD from being any more useful that the
least-possible-common-denominator POSIX system.  Come ON, McKusic, BSDI should
be *competing* against NT, not offering it a two-lap handicap!

At any rate, unless POSIX has placed a *maximum* of 255 characters
or so on the size of symbolic link text, the existing inode-based symlinks
*can't* be done away with, and I don't think having two sets of symbolic
link code in the kernel is at all justifiable.  Minimizing the number of
useful attributes stored in a symlink inode, OK; breaking symlinks so that
NT doesn't have to feel grossly inadequate, forget it (please).