diff --git a/coreutils/chown.c b/coreutils/chown.c
index daf77e294..98f9d9788 100644
--- a/coreutils/chown.c
+++ b/coreutils/chown.c
@@ -4,20 +4,7 @@
  *
  * Copyright (C) 1999-2004 by Erik Andersen <andersen@codepoet.org>
  *
- * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
- * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
- * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
- * (at your option) any later version.
- *
- * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
- * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
- * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
- * General Public License for more details.
- *
- * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
- * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
- * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
- *
+ * Licensed under GPLv2 or later, see file LICENSE in this tarball for details.
  */
 
 /* BB_AUDIT SUSv3 defects - unsupported options -h, -H, -L, and -P. */
@@ -30,11 +17,6 @@
 #include <string.h>
 #include "busybox.h"
 
-/* Don't use lchown for glibc older then 2.1.x */
-#if (__GLIBC__ <= 2) && (__GLIBC_MINOR__ < 1)
-#define lchown	chown
-#endif
-
 static long uid;
 static long gid;
 
@@ -42,12 +24,13 @@ static int (*chown_func)(const char *, uid_t, gid_t) = chown;
 
 static int fileAction(const char *fileName, struct stat *statbuf, void* junk)
 {
-	if (chown_func(fileName, uid, (gid == -1) ? statbuf->st_gid : gid) == 0) {
-		chmod(fileName, statbuf->st_mode);
-		return (TRUE);
+	if (!chown_func(fileName,
+				(uid == -1) ? statbuf->st_uid : uid,
+				(gid == -1) ? statbuf->st_gid : gid)) {
+		return TRUE;
 	}
-	bb_perror_msg("%s", fileName);	/* Avoid multibyte problems. */
-	return (FALSE);
+	bb_perror_msg("%s", fileName);	/* A filename could have % in it... */
+	return FALSE;
 }
 
 #define FLAG_R 1