Re: prefer local files to network connections

[Paul Eggert]

On 2024-01-30 10:57, Sam James wrote:
> The whole thing is bizarre and continues to catch people by surprise:
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2017-05/msg00002.html.

Yes, if I could go back decades in time I would say "don't implement it 
that way -- add an option instead!" What 'tar' currently does is a 
recipe for confusion.

Perhaps it's time to evolve tar in the direction that it should have 
gone back in the 1980s. That is, we add an option --remote to require 
remote interpretation of file names, and warn if a remote file name is 
used without --remote. Eventually we can make --remote the default. 
(There may be a better option name than "--remote"; we can look at other 
programs for ideas.)