Okay, I know this might sound a bit far-fetched, but hear me out.

Changing ownership of a file is typically considered a priveleged operation
with respect to quotas.  I thought until just a minute ago that quotas
were pretty much the only problem, then I realized how "at" does business.
(Of course /var/at is mode 700, owner root, so this is kind of moot, but
there's still a potential problem.)

[ "at" executes files with the owner being the owner of the atjob file. ]

Now, I don't see any reason to deny chown() to a normal user given that
quotas are not enabled; i.e. if there are no quotas, should one not be
able to give away files?  (This is a simple #ifdef in the kernel.)

However, the problem comes when you have something like "at"; you want
users to be able to give away files but ... well, you get the idea.

(in a development environment, it is sometimes desirable to be able to
 give files away so as not to trouble super-users with niggly little
 file-permission problems...  You could argue this, and someone probably
 will.  I still think this is not out of line.)

I was wondering if there should be a "nochown" (or "chown", if the nochown
would be the default) flag for the ufs filesystem.

[ Yes, it's feeping creaturism, but it was a thought, and it didn't
  occur to me that it was a necessarily bad one.  Please no flames;
  I don't think I'm that half-cocked on this one.  Comments are
  solicited.  If this deserves a better forum than this list, please
  point me. ]

Thanks!

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