In the sh-utils version 2.0 that is shipped with 6.1 the echo.c source file has the following line: /* #define V9_DEFAULT */ Because this is commented out the /bin/echo utility requires that a '-e' flag be passed to enable escape character recognition. Following is an example of the behavior: [nthomas@daisy src]$ /bin/echo "test\c" test\c [nthomas@daisy src[$ /bin/echo -e "test\c" test[nthomas@daisy src]$ This is <IMHO> the _right_ behavior in a lot of ways (the shell version does this), but many Linux users will find their scripts are broken by this. That is because in an effort to avoid adding '-e' to their scripts they use the following line: [ -n "$BASH_VERSION] && { enable -n echo ; } to enable the /bin/echo command instead of the shell echo command. Now that the two versions behave the same way they are having a lot of problems with their existing code. So, while I'm not sure this code can be called 'broken' it does seem to favor a theoritical goodness over the needs of the users. (There have, btw, been 5 separate ISV complaints on this one).
Unfortunately, the echo -e behaviour is a POSIX-ism, and therefore won't be fixed.