policy for motd and motd.tail

[Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

I've found out _how_ the /etc/motd and /etc/motd.tail work.  I'm
wondering _why_.

I used to put reminders (like do a backup) into /etc/motd with a cron
job.  This way I would get the reminder until I removed it.

Now, however, to put a reminder and have it appear immediatly, _and_
have it survive a reboot, I have to put it into both /etc/motd and
/etc/motd.tail.

Then when I want to remove a reminder, I have to remove it from both.

I can't find any mention of this in the policy manual, there's no
mention of the why in bootmisc.  I don't know to which package bootmisc
belongs to check its docs.

Does anyone know why, or who would know why,  motd is like this?

Thanks,

Doug.