cp incompatible with older versions!

[Steven Scholz]

Hi there,

the cp from recent coreutils is not compatible with cp from "GNU fileutils 
4.0.36"
package(as found on RH 7.1).

The old "cp -pr README.txt README_lang foo/bar/README.txt /tmp" would
copy three files but would overwrite the first README.txt with the
content of foo/bar/README.txt without further notice.

But newer versions will complain or fail:

RH-8.0:         cp (fileutils) 4.1.9

-> cp -pr README.txt README_lang foo/bar/README.txt /tmp
cp: warning: overwriting just-created `/tmp/README.txt' with 
`foo/bar/README.txt'

RH-9:           cp (coreutils) 4.5.3

-> cp -pr README.txt README_lang foo/bar/README.txt /tmp
cp: warning: overwriting just-created `/tmp/README.txt' with 
`foo/bar/README.txt'

SuSE 8.2:       cp (coreutils) 4.5.8

-> cp -pr README.txt README_lang foo/bar/README.txt /tmp
cp: will not overwrite just-created `/tmp/README.txt' with `foo/bar/README.txt'

Is that a bug or a feature!?

Thanks,

Steven