Re: [TUHS] Macs and future unix derivatives

fcntl locking semantics, where a close of *any* file descriptor, even a fd cloned via dup(2) or fork(2) will release the lock.

From BTSJ 57:6:

The file system maintains no locks visible to the user, nor is there any restriction on the number of users who may have a file open for reading or writing. Although it is possible for the contents of a file to become scrambled when two users write on it simultaneously, in practice difficulties do not arise. We take the view that locks are neither necessary nor sufficient, in our environment, to prevent interference between users of the same file. They are unnecessary because we are not faced with large, single-file databases maintained by independent processes. They are insufficient because locks in the ordinary sense, whereby one user is prevented from writing on a file that another user is reading, cannot prevent confusion when, for example, both users are editing a file with an editor that makes a copy of the file being edited. There are, however, sufficient internal interlocks to maintain the logical consistency of the file system when two users engage simultaneously in activities such as writing on the same file, creating files in the same directory, or deleting each other’s open files.