Bug #10940 mysqld won't start without a my.cnf file when mysqld_safe is used

Description:
mysqld fails to start if there's no my.cnf file when started with the mysqld_safe script.

How to repeat:
Using 5.0.7 from bk, do the following:

root-/usr/local# /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql.server start
Could not open required defaults file: /usr/local/mysql/data/my.cnf
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted
root-/usr/local# Could not open required defaults file: /usr/local/mysql/data/my.cnf
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted
Could not open required defaults file: /usr/local/mysql/data/my.cnf
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data
STOPPING server from pid file /usr/local/mysql/data/mysql.pid
050528 11:07:21  mysqld ended

I started mysql by doing the following:

root-/usr/local# cd mysql/data
root-mysql/data# touch my.cnf
root-mysql/data# /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql.server start
WARNING: Found /usr/local/mysql/data/my.cnf
Datadir is deprecated place for my.cnf, please move it to /usr/local/mysql

Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data

Suggested fix:
The problem is in mysqld_safe, not mysqld

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been committed to our
source repository of that product and will be incorporated into the
next release.

If necessary, you can access the source repository and build the latest
available version, including the bugfix, yourself. More information 
about accessing the source trees is available at
    http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Installing_source_tree.html

Additional info:

Will be fixed in 5.0.7.

BUG#11046 was marked as a duplicate of this bug.

http://lists.mysql.com/internals/25364