OT: Ping timeout much longer with 10.3.7

[RGould8 at aol.com]

Our testers have discovered that when Revolution does a shell("ping") to a 
server that isn't responding, that the timeouts are much different, depending on 
which version of Mac OS X one is on.   In Mac OS 10.3.2, we get feedback in a 
matter of seconds.   In Mac OS 10.3.7, it takes over 2 minutes to get 
feedback.   This happens in the terminal window too, so it's not a Rev issue.   I'm 
not into unix enough to know what to look for on Apple's site for a technote on 
this.   "ping latency"?   What's interesting is that the same problem exists 
for traceroute, even though the docs say that traceroute's wait-period is to 
default to 3 seconds.   Any thoughts?