system and desktop VFS merged

[Sean Middleditch]

On Sun, 2005-03-27 at 17:01 +0300, rosen georgiev wrote:

> So there should be :
> 
> a project to build the vfs layer, something like a set of librarys (eg
> libvfsftp, libvfsftp, libvfsssh and so on) that, as sed manage the
> connection reuse, passwords, security ... (this is something i'm not sure
> can be done - is it possible to make eg. libvfsftp so that connect will
> return the same connection for a set of processes, if they don't explicitly
> ask for a new one?)

You must use a daemon, which we will be using no matter what, as it is
simply impossible to provide the desirable semantics without one.  The
daemon can do all the magic of connection sharing, password querying and
caching, file caching, whatever we need.

> 
> and something to replace FUSE-KIO so that it uses the vfs layer and if 
> possible cross patform (HURD will also be easy - but not very used :)

Adding a FUSE layer to work on top of D-VFS would be quite possible and
something I fully expect to happen.

> 
> 
> It is obvious that this is not a complete cross platform solution but it
> _can_ be if BSD and others make something like FUSE for there kernel and it
> _does_ provide a complete Desktop VFS, the rest can be added in time

First, and I've said this more times than I ever cared for, FUSE is NOT
THE ANSWER, and NEVER WILL BE.  FUSE is 100% limited to working with
POSIX, and POSIX only, and cannot offer functionality in addition to
POSIX, and that isn't acceptable, because POSIX simply CANNOT do certain
things we want.  Simple things like "copy this file" cannot be done with
POSIX - you must instead read/stream the file from the source to the
destination - on a remote share, that means in order to copy a file
(which could otherwise be done 100% on the server-end) you must download
the entire file and then upload it back, just to make a copy.  POSIX
isn't up to snuff, FUSE can only offer POSIX, and thus FUSE is not the
answer.  It's a great hack to make legacy apps work somewhat well with
modern file system operations, but it is not and never, ever should be
the basis of a modern VFS layer.

I fully support a FUSE module for D-VFS, but I will not see D-VFS get
hamstrung by being designed entirely around FUSE and its limitations.

> 
> Soooo what do You say !!!?!!?
> eagerly waiting for replys :))
> 
> rosen
> 
> 
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-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis at awesomeplay.com>