A modest proposal for better errno values...

[Paul Turley]

Let me begin by assuring you all I am by no means a BSD hacker, just a user 
and fan, an interested party if you will, and so my thoughts are 
disposable; my vote isn't to be counted. But here are my thoughts, for 
those who care to read them.

To put this in some perspective, the various versions of Apple Pascal I ran 
on my various versions of Apple ][ had a global variable which modified the 
system behavior in several ways. The variable was not exactly in plain 
sight, but was visible to a user who took more than a cursory glance at the 
software and/or its documentation. The Boolean variable "STUPID" 
--documented as STUdent Programmer ID-- was set TRUE by default, as shipped 
by Apple Computer.

Apple has requested that the FreeBSD project change an identifier in the 
FreeBSD source, as Apple finds the current identifier somewhat indelicate. 
There seems to be some feeling that Apple has contributed little to the 
FreeBSD project. So the question seems obvious: Just how much, in tangible 
terms, does Apple want this changed? And what, of equivalent value to the 
project, are they prepared to offer in exchange for this favor?

Be careful of the precedent you set.

--pht