Final point: I realize nobody wants to maintain a non-upstreamable
forked version of software. Everybody wants to be able to build
software on cygwin out of the box.
So...if the upstream people really really hate --follow/--no-follow and
won't accept it, then maybe an all-at-once change here on cygwin would
be okay. Ditto --safe.
But...that's not an issue here, because *you* are the "upstream people"!
So let's rephrase: What is the "upstream" objection to providing a few
new options, with no change in upstream's current default behavior:
--follow follow symbolic links and modify the pointed-to
file. This differs from --force, which breaks
the symbolic link, replaces it with a local
copy, and modifies the copy. If --force, then
--follow has no effect.
--no-follow do not follow symbolic links. If --force, then
--no-follow has no effect.
...
--safe Do not modify binary files; opposite of --force.
(default)
Time to create the patch? Patch requires too many internal changes that
are too ugly, due to internal architecture (can't imagine this is the
objection to --safe; that's a two-liner)? Style?