Comment 3 for bug 392466

This is by design; it is the way POSIX is supposed to work.

From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system_permissions#Classes ):
* The execute permission, which grants the ability to execute a file. This permission must be set for executable binaries (for example, a compiled c++ program) or shell scripts (for example, a Perl program) in order to allow the operating system to run them. When set for a directory, this permission grants the ability to traverse its tree in order to access files or subdirectories, but not see files inside the directory (unless read is set).