https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP-2659 introduced needing super user to call getStats and was wondered why it was added since the POSIX stat method doesn't require super. this prevents us from correctly implementing the POSIX stat function: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP-4368.
>From man stat:
You do not need any access rights to the file to
get this information but you need search rights to all directories
named in the path leading to the file.
Thanks, pete
