Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives (was: silentsemantic changes with reiser4)

[Paul Jakma]

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Spam wrote:

>  Indeed. I hope I didn't say otherwise :).

Sure.

>  Just that I think it  will
>  be very difficult to have this transparency in all apps. Just
>  thinking of "nano file.jpg/description.txt" or "ls
>  file.tar/untar/*.doc". Sure in some environments like Gnome it could
>  work, but it still doesn't for the rest of the flora of Linux
>  programs.

"will it be transparent for all apps?", whether that's worth doing 
depends on the technical implications. Thankfully we have Al and 
Linus to make the judgement call on that ;)

Personally, I think that if GNOME can provide transparency for GNOME 
users, I think that's probably enough - unless there are literally no 
issues in adding some kind of VFS support.

The nano / ls /tar user is likely a very different user to the GNOME 
user. That user is also likely to appreciate the problems with 
backups and such more.

Anyway, userspace transparency is sufficient for most classes of 
users. Only reason to provide some kernel support is if it makes 
sense ("but not all apps can use GNOME transparency" not being one of 
those reasons).

regards,
--
Paul Jakma	paul@xxxxxxxx	paul@xxxxxxxxx	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will.
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