Dangerous behavior when moving a mounted directory on the desktop

[Abe Fettig <abe fettig net>]

I keep all my important files on a separate disk partition from my main
linux install, so that I can access them from other operating systems. 
When in linux, this partition is mounted off my home directory, at
/home/abe/files.

Yesterday I went to rearrange some of the icons on my desktop (I'm using
the "home directory on the desktop option), and I dragged the "files"
icon to another part of the screen.  To my surprise, Nautilus popped up
the "copying files" dialog.  I thought that maybe I'd dropped the icon
on another folder instead, so I hit cancel.  After a couple of seconds,
the "copying files" dialog dissapeared, and a "deleting files" dialog
popped up intstead.  That seemed strange, but I assumed it was just
removing the copies it had started to make.  However, after a few
seconds, I realized it was deleting all the files in my original "files"
folder!!!

Of course I quickly hit cancel, and it stopped deleting.  But seeing my
most important files dissapearing (yes, I have a backup, but it's a few
days old and I've done some work since then) was very scary.  As far as
I can tell this bug is caused by the convergence of desktop-as-home-dir
and the way Nautilus handles seperate partitions.  Rather than just
moving the icon, Nautilus actually wanted to start copying files, and
then it seemed to think the original source directory was the target
directory and that it needed to be cleaned up.

I'd be most appreciative if somebody could fix this.


-- 
Abe Fettig <abe fettig net>