diff -uNr fileutils-4.0.27/src/chown.c.orig fileutils-4.0.27/src/chown.c
--- fileutils-4.0.27/src/chown.c.orig	Mon Jul 31 01:10:10 2000
+++ fileutils-4.0.27/src/chown.c	Thu Oct 26 16:02:31 2000
@@ -191,6 +191,14 @@
       return 1;
     }
 
+  if (S_ISLNK (file_stats.st_mode) && !change_symlinks
+      && stat (file, &file_stats))
+    {
+      if (force_silent == 0)
+	error (0, errno, _("getting attributes of file pointed by %s"), quote (file));
+      return 1;
+    }
+
   if ((old_user == (uid_t) -1  || file_stats.st_uid == old_user) &&
       (old_group == (gid_t) -1 || file_stats.st_gid == old_group))
     {