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In alt.os.linux.slackware, Joost Kremers dared to utter,
> in fact, with tar's --owner, --group and --mode options, it would be
> painfully easy to write makepkg that way, at least for packages that do not
> require special ownership or permissions for certain files. and if you do
> need them, you could use fakeroot, also mentioned in this thread.

Well, makepkg already has something similar to this for directories,
and speaks on why it's not such a great idea.

If y, makepkg will reset all directory permissions
to 755 and ownership to root:root. In general, you
should have the permissions and ownerships worked
out yourself, so relying on setting this option to
y is somewhat sloppy. It is not the default. If
an option is not provided, makepkg will prompt.

Looking on directory ownership as being even less complex than file
ownersip, I think that's a good enough reason _not_ to do it the
cumbersome suggested way. Of the top of my head, I can only think of a
handful of directories with permissions varyied from 755 root:root
(/tmp and /var/tmp immediately spring to mind) not counting user
created directories such as home directories. On the other hand, I can
think of a slew of files that should have permissions not necessarily
obvious. passwd comes to mind, being 4511. Then there's things like
cdrecord and gpg (which Slackware does not setuid, though it's very
common for this to be done later). I just don't see a compelling
argument to modify makepkg to reset permissions on files, even if this
could be magically done quick and easy by a Makefile parser.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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