x bit for dirs: misfeature?

vda
2001-11-19T14:23:51Z

Everytime I do 'chmod -R a+rX dir' and wonder are there
any executables which I don't want to become world executable,
I think "Whatta hell with this x bit meaning 'can browse'
for dirs?! Who was that clever guy who invented that? Grrrr"

Isn't r sufficient? Can we deprecate x for dirs?
I.e. make it a mirror of r: you set r, you see x set,
you clear r, you see x cleared, set/clear x = nop?

Benefits:
chmod -R go-x dir (ensure there is no executables)
chmod -R a+r dir (make tree world readable)
mount -t vfat -o umask=644 /dev/xxx dir
(I don't want all files to be flagged as executables there)

These commands will do what I want without (sometimes ugly) tricks.
For mount, I can't even see how to do it with current implementation.

What standards will be broken?
Any real loss of functionality apart from compat issues?
--
vda