lots of gnu utils have the dreaded filename length creativity impediment

[Dan Jacobson]

Dear GNU sirs, perhaps many of your tools have the dreaded "arbitrary
filename length limit", e.g.

$ touch $(yes|sed 260q|tr -d \\n)
touch: yyyyyyyy ... yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy: File name too long

limiting the creativity of youngsters everywhere to e.g.,

$ touch $(yes|sed 250q|tr -d \\n) #[shudder]

next thing you know, you'll be requiring ALL_CAPS.

Anyway, it happened on tee and touch, and I bet if you did
$ su junk_acct
long_name=$(yes|sed 260q|tr -d \\n);
$ for i in gnu/bin/*; do $i $long_name; done
you'll find lots of them.  True I've got old stuff, but I bet you
couldn't have fixed them all... ed..., I bet you didn't fix ed.

Or just scan your source tree for the grim reaper of creativity "File
name too long" line.

Or maybe it is a Mandrake 7.2 thing.  If so the secretary will disavow
any knowledge of this message.
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