On May 21,  3:11pm, wiz@NetBSD.org (Thomas Klausner) wrote:
-- Subject: bin/30295: getty accepts too few letters after username prompt

| >Number:         30295
| >Category:       bin
| >Synopsis:       getty accepts too few letters after username prompt
| >Confidential:   no
| >Severity:       serious
| >Priority:       medium
| >Responsible:    bin-bug-people
| >State:          open
| >Class:          sw-bug
| >Submitter-Id:   net
| >Arrival-Date:   Sat May 21 15:11:00 +0000 2005
| >Originator:     Thomas Klausner
| >Release:        NetBSD 3.99.3/i386
| >Organization:
| 
| >Environment:
| 	
| 	
| >Description:
| When entering a username at the console, getty only accepts the first 16 letters
| and then automatically switches to the password prompt (no return needed).
| 
| It should not do this for at least these reasons:
| . usernames are allowed to be longer than 16 characters
| . there was no return
| . login doesn't do it this way

I will argue otherwise:

. usernames can only go up to LOGIN_MAX, which is 16.
. this has been the traditional behavior and it is done on purpose.
  It can be changed to silently ignore input, but nobody has complained
  until now. 
. most other unixes do it this way.

christos