> But I agree that if leaving the sockets around permits no interesting > feature whatsoever (i.e. it doesn't even serve for SO_REUSEADDR),
I've been trying to think of any such feature since this discussion started. So far i've failed. > it very well could be a design or implementation bug, I suspect it is actually not so much a design or implementation bug as it is a historical accident: I suspect the initial implementation made them a new inode type because it was a cheap and easy way to get a namespace for free, and didn't bother with the impedance mismatch between filesystem semantics and (other-AF) socket semantics because it was just a quick experimental hack. Then, as often happens, the quick experimental hack persisted long beyond its initial experimental phase, with nobody fixing the semantics because everybody was used to them and software was written to deal. As I mentioned in another message a few minutes ago, I think this is not easy to do fully right - indeed, it's not totally clear what "right" is in all cases - but I do think it is easy to come close enough to be useful. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B