The same standard also says that rm -rf . should return an error. GNU coreutils does, and its documented: http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#rm-invocation

So, I kinda fail to see your point there…

This action is typical of the arrogance of GNU. When I switch
between different Unixes, I want the core commands to be as similar
as possible, and GNU happily ignores standards and conventions.

The GNU project follow standards quite stricly (specially if you set
the POSIXLY_CORRECT enviromental variable), and in this case, we
follow them as well. There is nothing in the standards (POSIX
1003.1-2001 and onwards) that prohibits this type of behaviour.

Another common example of where people think we broke things on
purpose is the case of `head +2′, POSIX 1003.1-2001 changed this to
mean something different (show the beginning of the file +2, instead
of showing the first two lines), so with POSIX 1003.1-2001 and onward,
you must use `head -n2′ to show the first two lines of a file.

rm -rf / isn’t any more dangerous when logged in as a standard user
than running rm -rf . when $PWD=$HOME. While I admire the
intention, it doesn’t actual protect you from anything much, and
breaks the behaviour of a standard tool. Backups and not being
stupid as root are the solutions.

Maybe it isn’t dangrous as percived, but users requested the feature
and the feature is useful, so we implemented it. You can still get
the old behaviour using –no-preserve-root, it is a win-win situation
for all parties.

Oh and GNU/Linux? Come on… as far as my daily interactions go, I
should probably call it LaTeX/KDE/Linux before I call it
GNU/Linux. Oh, what, you say, they’re built on GNU tools? Well, the
GNU tools require glibc too. You can’t have it both ways.

You have fallen in to the common trap of thinking that GNU is a set of
tools, it isn’t, it is a free operating system. The GNU C library
(glibc) is one of the many parts of the system that we wrote, to
complete the system. Linus wrote a important missing part, the Linux
kernel, and completed the GNU system in the form of GNU/Linux. You
can read more about this at:

* http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

* http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

* http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-users-never-heard-of-gnu.html

rm -rf / isn’t any more dangerous when logged in as a standard user than running rm -rf . when $PWD=$HOME. While I admire the intention, it doesn’t actual protect you from anything much, and breaks the behaviour of a standard tool. Backups and not being stupid as root are the solutions.

Oh and GNU/Linux? Come on… as far as my daily interactions go, I should probably call it LaTeX/KDE/Linux before I call it GNU/Linux. Oh, what, you say, they’re built on GNU tools? Well, the GNU tools require glibc too. You can’t have it both ways.

Elitists fear the new wave of Linux user. Fuelled by the arrival of those new users, Linux develpers add new safeguards easier configuration a slew of changes that make the system easier to use, which, for elistists, also means less powerful. I think this is rarely the case though because the underlying system hasn’t changed that much.

@fdgonthier: Neither do I. It doesn’t make sense at all on a running system.