On Wed, 14 May 2003, Damien Miller wrote:
> Dan O'Reilly wrote:
> > Why should the client care at all? The basic requirement is "support a
> > rename function". Why should the client *SOFTWARE* (not USER) care how
> > the server system actually performs that?
>
> Because the semantics matter: will the server's rename() overwrite an
> existing file? Is it atomic? Will it cross filesystems?
>
> Put a different way: if the semantics are irrelevant, then why are we
> even having this discussion?
>
I agree. It does matter. One person's definition and implement of what
'rename' does and does not do can be very different than someone elses.
And without some constant baseline to work from it will drive the user
insane.
Lot of places deploy ssh/sftp instead of ftp for website updating. And
frankly, most end-users don't care why NT acts one way and VMS works
another.