Right, but that's only because drives are lying at that point (or implemented so incompetently they have no idea they're lying...). Linux is trying to force lia

Right, but that's only because drives are lying at that point (or implemented so incompetently they have no idea they're lying...). Linux is trying to force liars to do what it wants anyway, and hence as a practical matter, programs need to worry about this too. This doesn't mean the spec is somehow broken or that honest (and competent) implementers couldn't guarantee durability if they wanted to.