Re: gnome

[Havoc Pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Fox, Kevin M wrote:
> code i am hearing about. All filesystem stuff should be implemented at the
> kernel/module level allowing all programs to use it without modification. If
> you implement VFS, only VFS aware programs will be able to use it.
> 

GNOME is not just for Linux. Therefore, it must build on top of the
operating system, rather than changing it. VFS is an abstraction layer
that could take advantage of OS-specific features if and when they become
available. Using a Linux module instead would be absurd.

However, vfs is not X-specific, which was your concern in the first half
of your email; console programs can use it. It is used in the console
version of midnight commander.

In general Gnome shares as much code as possible keeping its goals in mind
(which include portability, a certain level of functionality, and
releasing useful programs within a reasonable amount of time given
available labor).

Havoc