> Now, the other half (less urgent): Am I missing something in the
> crontab(5) man-page?  Or the cron(1)?  While the behavior can be guessed
> with a little thought (or deterimed from the source---or found by
> consulting a mailing list), I cannot see that it is documented. Should I
> send-pr it?  Or does someone with write access want to fix it
> off-the-cuff?  (^&

crontab(5) has an example section; none of the examples show the
ampersand.

cron(8) (of 1.5.1_ALPHA) says:
DESCRIPTION
       Cron  should be started from /etc/rc or /etc/rc.local.  It
       will return immediately, so you don't  need  to  start  it
       with '&'.

So it seems like it could easily say the same about the commands it 
runs. Maybe:

--- /usr/src/usr.sbin/cron/crontab.5    Mon Oct 12 15:15:47 1998
+++ crontab.5   Sat Feb 17 20:36:36 2001
@@ -136,6 +136,13 @@
 .PP
 The ``sixth'' field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be
 run.
+The commands ran by
+.IR cron (8)
+do not need to be followed by an
+ampersand;
+.IR cron (8)
+does not wait for the command to terminate before proceeding to
+execute another command.
 The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or %
 character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell
 specified in the SHELL variable of the cronfile

--- /usr/src/usr.sbin/cron/cron.8       Wed Mar 12 22:19:10 1997
+++ cron.8      Sat Feb 17 20:30:52 2001
@@ -56,6 +56,10 @@
 .IR Crontab (1)
 command updates the modtime of the spool directory whenever it changes a
 crontab.
+.PP
+.I cron
+does not wait for a command to finish before executing the
+next command.
 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 crontab(1), crontab(5)
 .SH AUTHOR


   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://www.reedmedia.net/