Bug 702301 - Symlinks are being expanded

[Stefan Dröge <stefand986 gmail com>]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to discuss the bug which is described here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=702301
and here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/280431/how-can-i-stop-nautilus-from-dereferencing-symlinks

The bug is still unfixed in 3.10.1 (on Ubuntu 14.04) and is very
annoying, and against common Linux symlink behaviour.
There doesn't seem to be very much interest in the bug by the
developers, even the status is still "UNCONFIRMED". Whats the reason
for that?

I also read Bug 686465. But this is not a bug but the "fix" produces
new more dangerous problems (besides being annoying). This becomes
clear when you consider the following case:
1. A file "usersfile.txt", owned by "user" contained in a folder
"rootsfolder" owned by "root".
2. A symlink "linktousersfile.txt" to "rootsfolder/usersfile.txt". The
symlink sits in a folder owned by user.
3. Using Nautilus (with "Bug" 686465 fixed) opening the file in a text
editor it is impossible to save a backup file, because "user" has not
the permission to create "rootsfolder/usersfile.txt~".

Besides not beeing the standard Linux/Unix way how symlinks are
treated, the above described situation just makes it worse: There will
be no backup of file "usersfile.txt" at all!!

Moreover how backup files are named and where they are placed depends
on the application which is used. Nautilus should not need to care
about that.

Please comment

- Stefan