[Bug 12915] --modify-window should default to 1 for fat filesystems

[samba-bugs at samba.org]

https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12915

--- Comment #4 from Kevin Korb <rsync at sanitarium.net> ---
The manual says that with FAT you need --modify-window=2 not 1.  But here in
the US for half of the year you need --modify-window=3602 instead.  The same
goes for many other locations.  The simple fact of the matter is that FAT is an
obsolete filesystem designed for 5.25 inch floppy disks that is not in any way
compatible to doing 1990's vintage things.  I know there are devices out there
that are stuck with FAT but it is the user's job to adapt to their
incapabilities not rsync's.

Years ago, when I still had a Win98 computer to backup I suggested that rsync
should have a --fat option.  The --fat option would would have omitted --owner,
--group, --permissions from --archive and would have ignored an exactly 1 hour
difference in time stamp (back then rsync only supported whole second time
stamps anyway).  I was told no.  It isn't rsync's job to work around garbage
filesystems that have been obsolete for decades.

Rsync should not be responsible for detecting what a filesystem can handle. 
Many things can obscure those facts from rsync on a per-directory basis  (or
even a per-file basis).  Rsync should do what it is told to do or it should
report failure.  That is what it is doing.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the QA Contact for the bug.