From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: vc-mode-line ancient, root-specific code for buffer-read-only Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:50 -0800 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <999b7b9b-4c91-a517-4c65-b88998fe3b6f@cs.ucla.edu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1545200156 23944 195.159.176.226 (19 Dec 2018 06:15:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2018 06:15:56 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.2.1 To: Glenn Morris , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 19 07:15:52 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1gZV94-00069D-Rm for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Dec 2018 07:15:50 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57806 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gZVBB-00014J-AI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Dec 2018 01:18:01 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45245) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gZVA9-00014A-VG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Dec 2018 01:16:58 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gZVA6-0006Tt-0L for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 19 Dec 2018 01:16:57 -0500 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:37682) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gZVA5-0006Sk-Nx; Wed, 19 Dec 2018 01:16:53 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A25A1609F7; Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:52 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id Ca18vo3tSzGm; Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:51 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38509160A2A; Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:51 -0800 (PST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id 7Zii66-Y1EVG; Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:51 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (cpe-23-242-74-103.socal.res.rr.com [23.242.74.103]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id F194F1609D9; Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:16:50 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:231917 Archived-At: Glenn Morris wrote: > > I would like to suggest just removing that vc-mode-line code. > It's for locking VCS, is buggy, and doesn't even make sense. > root cannot "write anything", unless we are concerned with odd cases > like a file being writable by other but not owner. Ie locked files would > be marked read-only for root anyway. The code is indeed for locking VCs which are almost entirely obsolete now. And the code has problems if the file has been deleted, as you noted. So I would favor removing the code as being more trouble than it's worth. On the other hand I don't follow the comment "root cannot 'write anything'". Traditionally, root can write any file that is writable to any user (and even some files that no other users can write to), so in that sense roote can "write anything".