bug#11912: 24.1; 'M' in Dired on a symlink does not refresh the display

[Paul Eggert]

On 8/25/21 3:57 AM, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> on the command line, chmod is fine with following symlinks

Yes, that's what POSIX requires. However, Dired is different from the 
POSIX shell, because a Dired user sees the permissions on a symbolic 
link while typing the command to the edit permissions, and the natural 
assumption is that one is editing what one is seeing. This is even more 
true of Wdired (Bug#50189); and it's also quite true for Dired.

That is why G, O, T should also be fixed (see Bug#50191). The Dired 
users sees the group, ownership, and timestamp of the symlink while 
typing the "change the group" (or whatever) command, so the natural 
assumption is that one is changing what one is seeing.

This assumption is so hardwired that it is the original motivation for 
the coding error that prompted Bug#11912.