Lets not argue about the issue, we should use TMPDIR over /tmp; or mktemp. > The part where I'm confused is
[...] Iâm just saying that an obvious way to work around the silly socket name length limitation is to cd somewhere, and then use a relative path, like ./my-socket. You didn't answer my question, I'm still curious as to _why_ this happens. BTW, syslogd.sh says #!/bin/sh, but it seems to use non-POSIX extensions, no? What extentions do are you thinking of exactly? I couldn't find anything particular. As a side note, and useless fact of the day, there is no requirement by POSIX that /bin/sh is a POSIX shell though that is what is traditional on unixoids.
