From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: tuhs@cuzuco.com (Brian S Walden)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 03:56:05 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] History of chown semantics
Message-ID: <201401160856.s0G8u5fe021668@cuzuco.com>

the short: yes you could chown your own files in 1st to 5th editions, the
first pwb was a derivition of 4th ed, so its not the originator of the idea.

the long:
that "superuser could not even chown setuid files" awoke a long dead memory.
I needed to go back to read the 1st ed man entries for chown(1) and (2)
again ( see http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/1stEdman.html inc. below)
and it is documented that yes, one indeed could give away their
own files. also note 1st ed was pre-gid, files had only owner and
non-owner, so no setgid to worry about. looking more 2nd and 3rd ed
were the same (see ttp://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v2/v2man.pdf
and http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v3/v3man.tar.gz)
however in the 3rd ed there were now gids yet no restistions on chown of
setgid files.  4th and 5th ed still allowed file give away even if the
setuid bit was set by stripping that bit out (unless superuser) (but
did not strip the setgid bit)
(see http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v4/v4man.tar.gz 
and http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v5/v5man.pdf)
The 6th ed and on is when only the superuser could change file owners.
Since the first PWBs were derived from 4th and 5th editions, they just
did not buy into the new chown() restrictions from v6 (and added the
missed strippig of the setgid bit)

1st Ed manual enries --

11/3/71								CHOWN (I)
NAME		chown -- change owner
SYNOPSIS	chown owner file
DESCRIPTION	owner becomes the new owner of the files. The owner may be
		either a decimal UID or a name found in /etc/uids.
		Only the owner of a file is allowed to change the owner. It
		is illegal to change the owner of a file with the set-user-
		ID mode.
FILES		/etc/uids
SEE ALSO	stat
DIAGNOSTICS
BUGS
OWNER		ken, dmr

11/3/71							 SYS CHOWN (II)
NAME		chown -- change owner of file
SYNOPSIS	sys chown; name; owner / chown = 16.
DESCRIPTION	The file whose name is given by the null-terminated string
		pointed to by name has its owner changed to owner. Only
		the present owner of a file (or the super-user) may donate
		the file to another user. Also, one may not change the
		owner of a file with the set-user-ID bit on, otherwise one
		could create Trojan Horses able to misuse other's files.
FILES
SEE ALSO	/etc/uids has the mapping between user names and user
		numbers.
DIAGNOSTICS	The error bit (c-bit) is set on illegal owner changes.
BUGS
OWNER		ken, dmr


> From Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>
> 
> Indeed, research Unix never allowed ordinary users to
> change a uid. And even in the first edition, the superuser
> was not allowed to do so on set-uid files, presumably to
> prevent inadvertent laying of cuckoo eggs. The v6 note
> about interaction with accounting reflected field
> experience with the overly liberal stance of other Unixes.
>