[TUHS] When/how did ctime change from inode "creation" to "change" time?

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2025 at 01:33:14PM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Mar 2025, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> 
> > As part of a discusion on the Linux kernel mailing list, there was an 
> > assertion that ctime was orginally "creation time".
> 
> [...]
> 
> It's been "inode change time" for as long as I can remember (and that's 
> since the 70s); I have no idea what the Penguins are on about, but I've 
> never given them much credence anyway.

OK, how much credence would you give to Ritchie and Thompson writing
in The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 57, No. 6, July-August
1978, page 1914[1], where they state that the i-node contains:

   (v) time of creation, last use, and last modification
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[1] https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Papers/BSTJ/bstj57-6-1905.pdf

There are some of us Penguins who actually cared enough to do some
research using the TUHS archives...    :-)

						- Ted