In article <20030115015511.D50BAA@proven.weird.com> you write:
>[ On Tuesday, January 14, 2003 at 22:40:03 (+0000), Ben Harris wrote: ]
>> Subject: Re: building 1.6 on -current: pax-as-tar problem?
>>
>> In article <20030114215357.D49D6A@proven.weird.com> you write:
>> >
>> >This so-called "gratuitous" change was mandated by the first POSIX
>> >1003.2 version, and that was many years ago (though not specifially for
>> >'tar' of course but rather for all commands in general).
>> 
>> POSIX has never specified the behaviour of tar,
>
>Which is more or less what I said.
>
>> and hence is entirely
>> innocent in this case.
>
>No, not at all.
>
> Utility Syntax Guidelines

Note the word "guidelines", and that all the guidelines have "should" in
them.  They're explicitly not rules unless invoked as such.

In particular (at least in the 2001 edition -- I'm not at work so I
haven't got access to the 1992 edition), the guidelines are preceded by:

# The guidelines are intended to provide guidance to the authors of future
# utilities, such as those written specific to a local system or that are
# components of a larger application.

Note the words "guidance" and "future".  None of this could be construed as
mandating changes to existing non-standard applications such as tar.

-- 
Ben Harris                                                   <bjh21@netbsd.org>
Portmaster, NetBSD/acorn26           <URL:http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/acorn26/>