Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!longway!std-unix
From: guy@auspex.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: POSIX, NFS, CPIO/TAR
Keywords: POSIX, NFS, CPIO/TAR
Message-ID: <482@longway.TIC.COM>
Date: 18 Dec 89 21:19:45 GMT
References: <2587D93A.19FD@marob.masa.com> <7674@portia.Stanford.EDU> <474@longway.TIC.COM> <478@longway.TIC.COM>
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Reply-To: guy@auspex.uucp (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
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Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman)

From: guy@auspex.uucp (Guy Harris)

 >>IEEE Std 1003.1 defines "group ID" and "user ID" to be NON-NEGATIVE
 >>integers in Section 2.3.  This is in conformance with existing practice
 >>that Sun gratuitously ignored in their NFS implementation.
 >
 >Hmmm.  This could, indeed, cause problems.
 >
 >Who's going to change?

All together now: "fixed in 4.1" (unless they've ripped the fix out
since I left).  SVID says it's an unsigned type, and SunOS 4.1 is
intended to be SVID-conformant, at least at the BA_OS and, I think,
KE_OS level.  If that causes problems with "tar" or "cpio" archives,
well, you can't make even a SVID-compliant omelet without breaking a few
eggs....

Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 109