weird PATH_MAX discussion in mplayer's list. (Fwd: [MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] fix for unconditional use of PATH_MAX)

[Robert Millan]

hi,

please someone could lend me a hand? i'm having trouble with these
people trying to convince them to support systems without PATH_MAX

they keep insisting on hardcoding PATH_MAX to 512 bytes.. with
this last message (see below) it's getting realy weird. if someone can
help please read the archived discussion:

  http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/2003-April/018199.html

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 10:15:54AM -0400, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 02:35:01PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> > 
> > please don't do that, it's a _bad_ solution. what if i run mplayer in
> > a directory longer than 512 bytes? then it will fail or not work as
> > expected.
> 
> Then you deserve what you get for making such a nonsense directory!!
> 
> > if you hardcode PATH_MAX, you'll recieve bug reports from users telling
> > that mplayer fails or behaves unexpectedly.
> 
> No, no one uses such long paths, because on ALL unices but Hurd,
> they're forbidden!
> 
> There's a reason PATH_MAX exists. In order to make an operating system
> robust, there have to be resource limits on users. If I could make a
> 500-meg directory name, then pass it to a syscall, that would be some
> serious denial of service on the system.....

-- 
Robert Millan

make: *** No rule to make target `war'.  Stop.

Another world is possible - Just say no to genocide