Because if permissions were used, you wouldn't lose anything (that I can see)
since you could still make them r-xr-xr-x, but you could also protect
them which can be useful for symlinks into execute-only directories,
for instance.
> Because a symbolic link is merely a file system redirection. The permissions
> of what it redirects via and too apply.
In my view, a symlink is a file which happens to have a special meaning to the
OS. So the fact that its permissions and ownership are not respected make it
an exception hence my question: why was this exception invented and why hasn't
it been removed since then ?
Stefan