On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 01:47:42AM +0200, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
> > As supporting file system images in regular files is useful
> > functionality, yet not necessarily something we want on by default
> > because it changes existing behaviour, I'm adding an explicit flag
> > (-F) which allows specific control over the new functionality for
> > safety and compatibility reasons.
> 
> What existing behaviour is changed - that I don't get prompted if I really
> want to do what I asked for? With that reasoning I wonder if we want to
> make the "-i" option to rm(1) the default, and add -I to turn it off?

Before -F, many of the tools would not permit the use of a regular
file as a file system image; they specifically checked if the provided
device was a block or character special file.

I wanted a consistent way of allow these tools to manipulate file
system images without compromising the existing behaviour that each
tool had with respect to them making specific checks, and without
requiring interactive user intervention when manipulating fs images in
files.