Re: Improve support for ACLs in coreutils (ls & chmod) following the Solaris way

[Bruno Haible]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> So as we see there are lots of "additional attributes"
> with dedicated programs to manipulate them.
> What's the big advantage of merging with ls and chmod,
> over the current situation of separate utilities?

In [1] I'm arguing:

  * A feature that has impact on security, and that its users don't
    understand, is a major security problem it itself. If it's too
    easy to misunderstand what effect a specific ACL has, it will cause
    unintended ACLs to be set.

  * Hence efforts should be made that enable the users to understand
    the ACLs that they may set or have set.

  * Most users have no experience with {get,set}facl, {get,set}fattr,
    {ls,ch}attr, only with 'ls' and 'chmod'. Therefore it will be
    easier for them to learn another 'ls' option that to remember three(!)
    other programs getfacl, getfattr, lsattr.

Bruno

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2023-01/msg00086.html