> > Not quite.  The idea is to present symlinks as objects which don't
> > have owners (which is currently not true; this is preparation for a
> > day on which it may be).  But _something_ has to go into the st_uid
> > and st_gid fields of the struct stat; the choice was to copy the
> > ownership of the containing directory.
> 
> Would it be better for the fake ownership to come from the symlink's
> target if one exists, and the directory if the target does not?

Not really; it's not uncommon to symlink to things that you don't own.

also, i imagine that there could be ... interesting potential security
implications of using the target...





chris