bug#6245: cp - copy files and directories, ls -Rld, chmod

[Bob Proulx]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> I noticed myself that `cp --preserve=owner` does not give an
> error when running as non root. A pertinent comment from the source:
> 
>   /* If non-root uses -p, it's ok if we can't preserve ownership.
>      But root probably wants to know, e.g. if NFS disallows it,
>      or if the target system doesn't support file ownership.  */
> 
> Perhaps if "owner" is explicitly specified they we should warn?
> I'm not sure it's worth diverging the warning characteristics
> for this though.

I don't know.  I am not sure I am either for it or against it.  It
seems defensible that --preserve=owner should produce a diagnostic if
it can't actually set the owner.  I couldn't oppose it.  And some
traditional systems such as SysV do allow giving away file ownership.

I know you are not talking about cp -a but I wanted to say that I
often use cp -a to copy files not owned by me into my directory to
make a working copy that I can change.  If it started to produce
errors or warnings that would be bad.  I certainly think that behavior
shouldn't change or it would create a large problem for users.

Bob