Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?

[Chris Rebert]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:11 AM, Colin Higwell
<someone at someplace.invalid> wrote:
> $ cd /usr/bin
> $ ls -l python*
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27 02:42 python
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    6 Oct 29 19:34 python2 -> python
> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27 02:42 python2.7
> $ diff -s  python python2.7
> Files python and python2.7 are identical
> $
>
> I'm just curious: Why two identical files rather than a symlink?

Depends on your distro / installation method:
$ ls -l python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       9 Apr 12  2011 python -> python2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2288272 Dec 27  2010 python2.6
$ # this is on my Debian server

Cheers,
Chris