Why binary mode?

[Christopher Layne]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:30:16AM +0000, Eric Blake wrote:
> > This is, what I expect, after reading the Cygwin FAQ:
> > "When processing in text mode, [...] written to the file [...] 
> > you in fact get "Hello\r\n". Upon reading this combination, 
> > the \r is removed [...]".
> > Why is it in fact not removed when reading with cat?
> 
> The FAQ is outdated.  Would you care to volunteer to help
> maintain it?  Reading the NEWS for coreutils, cat was changed
> upstream in the last two years or so to always be binary-only,
> to more closely comply with POSIX rules that state that
> cat must operate on all file types, not just text files.
> If cat used default mode, it would corrupt true binary
> files that lived in text mounts.
> 
> -- 
> Eric Blake

It just sickens me that Microsoft continues to keep text mode alive.
Such a travesty.

-cl