[Boost-maint] Executable files in the boost tree

Subject: [Boost-maint] Executable files in the boost tree
From: Marshall Clow (mclow.lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-11-24 12:04:30

Someone recently opened trac ticket #10813 (https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/10813)
with the description:

> I recently updated Boost 1.57, I noticed that a few header files
> "parameter.hpp" and some of those in the "parameter" directory has
> permission 755 instead of normal 644. Why make these normal header files
> executable?

Since I built the release tarballs, I took this ticket and did some investigating.
The OP is absolutely correct, these files should not have 755 perms. 

Unfortunately for me, I discovered:

1) These permissions were not modified during the build process, but are marked this way in git.
2) It’s not just the parameter library.

I found about 1000 files marked as executable that shouldn’t be, and they were in the following libraries:

        asio
        assign
        bimap
        chrono
        concept_check
        foreach
        fusion
        gil
        graph
        iostreams
        lambda
        mpl
        msm
        numeric
        parameter
        polygon
        predef
        ptr_container
        python
        test
        thread
        type_traits
        typeof
        variant
        xpressive

Some files (such as shell scripts, python sources, etc) *should* be marked executable, but others (.hpp files, jam files, HTML, png, etc) should not.

I will deal with the libraries that are currently under the purview of the CMT (concept_check and mpl) 

I would appreciate if the maintainers of these libraries would clean this up before the Feb release.

Also, I will be enhancing the “inspect” tool to report on these this week.

— Marshall