gnome

["Fox, Kevin M" <kmfox bhi010 bhi-erc com>]

> It hit me......
> If you want to have the ability to add filesystems and have them use the
> same code between operating systems. use an NFS server of some kind.
> Wrap the filesystem code over an NFS server and then it should work on any
> OS.
> 
> Then the operating system can mount the NFS share and all programs can
> make use of it. No programs will need to be rewritten.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Todd Showalter [SMTP:todd@altsoftware.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, December 08, 1998 6:18 PM
> To:	'gnome-list@gnome.org'
> Subject:	re: gnome
> 
> On Tue, 8 Dec 1998 bratsche@dfw.net wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Todd Showalter wrote:
> > 
> >>     This strikes me as "if you have a hammer, everything tends to look
> >> like a nail".  gnome does not seem the right place to solve this
> problem
> >> to me.  If you want ftp wrapped in a filesystem, try to get it into the
> >> kernel of the OS you use.  If you want to be able to mount a tar file
> (or
> >> a gzipped tar file, for that matter) as a filesystem, try to get it
> into
> >> the kernel of the OS you use.
> >> 
> >>     The kernel is the place to solve this kind of thing.  I'm not
> running
> >> gnome when I telnet into one of my servers, but I might want to be able
> to
> >> use the above systems.  Filesystem wrapping like this should be
> available
> >> even when I'm not running in X (or what have you).  Restricting it to
> >> gnome is not desirable.
> > 
> > At the same time, GNOME is the only place we can reasonable expect to
> > get it installed. People writing GNOME applications don't want to have
> > to check the operating system in order to determine if they can mount
> > an ftp server. You can't reasonably expect every operating system that
> > GNOME is expected to eventually run on to implement VFS in their
> > kernel. That's just not sane.
> 
>     True, but what this is proposing is moving what (at least in many
> systems) is a kernel-domain problem into userland, and further wrapping it
> up in a specific software system which is only available in certain
> circumstances.  If I'm not running X, I'm not running gnome, which means
> if I want the services you are proposing on the console, I have to have
> duplicate functionality in two libraries.
> 
>     What if tar on the local system handles forked files (cf: BeOS...)?
> 
>     There are problems even in X.  What do you do (for instance) if the
> FreeBSD folks go and impliment tarfs as part of the kernel, and it behaves
> differently from the gnome version of tarfs?  Do you ignore the underlying
> OS fs?  Do you throw out your own if you find one in the system?  Either
> way, it becomes inconsistant.  If you toss the gnome version it is
> inconsistant across gnome (which has to be coded for).  If you toss out
> the local version, behavior is inconsistant on the same machine inside and
> outside of gnome.
> 
>     Part of the function of the core OS is to support filesystems.  By
> hijacking that responsibility, you create the possibility for conflict in
> the future.  You are also taking responsibility for things like security,
> locking, and other general filesystem issues that may require suid
> binaries and will be a hassle to maintain.
> 
>     We already have a standard way of accessing files and network sockets,
> for the most part.  In some operating systems there is talk of overlaying
> a filesystem on the network protocol to offer the kind of service being
> discussed (at least with respect to ftp).  Special-casing gnome to handle
> a new set of filesystems extends gnome in ways that it should probably not
> be extended.
> 
> > If you want to be able to telnet into a machine running VFS and have
> > access to it, perhaps you should write a new shell program that will
> make
> > use of it.
> 
>     I don't think this would be the way to go.  System services like
> filesystems should be available to everything from the kernel interface.
> 
> 							Todd.
> 
> --
> Todd Showalter       |  "The time has come," the Walrus said,
>                      |    "to talk of many things:"
> gandalf@interlog.com |
> todd@altsoftware.com |                            Lewis Carroll
> 
> 
> 
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