Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives

Bernd Petrovitsch
2004-09-03T09:03:09Z

On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 22:06 +0200, Spam wrote:
[...]
> The file streams would make my day a lot easier. The idea to
> split up contents of OO.org files into streams is bad. But that
> doesn't make the file streams bad. I see many uses that would make
> my every day life easier.

When can we expect patches?

> It isn't about cross plat form compatibility, but to add features
> that are useful and meta-data and file streams are.

Putting everything (including web server and browser) in the kernel is
not a good (or even desireable) target - perhaps that's the reason for
Win* to be where there are.
And it *is* done in user-space (ok, there more than one apprach and
implementation but this may change. And you want to invent the next
version.).

> Also. No one forces you to use either meta-data or streams, just as
> no one forces you to use ACLs or other things.

Which is probably an argument against such features. How long do ACLs
exist - as well as standard and in implementation?
How many people and/or apps are using it?
No more questions.

> > 3. MS does require attributes and multiple streams, which makes these
> > features important (even essential) to Samba, and Samba alone. Samba is
> > important to Linux, so this can't be ignored. (Here I am implicitly
> > assuming that Samba will need kernel support for this to do it right.)
>
> I do not think the Samba would really require the streams support
> but it would certainly make life easier for Samba. Not to mention
> that these files would also be natively viewed on the Linux host.

It is not in the interest of MSFT that their aplication's files are
viewable on other OSes. Expect incompatible changes to formats, streams
and metadata contents (and surely patents on them - even if the idea is
not new) if it starts to be really useful. It happended already in the
past with the SMB protocol IIRC ....

Bernd
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