Unionfs etc Re: Packaging

[James Frazer]

This reminds me about some FS ideas I was contemplating a year or so ago.

Sometimes I feel that traditional file systems impose to much structure 
on the user.  I think one of the things that make current OS's too hard 
to use is that a lot of OS files are open to user-eyes when they 
shouldn't be.  Both MacOSX and Windows try to 'hide' these files, but in 
reality we know they're still there (and it's very easy to get to them 
and muck around).

So what I'm getting at here is I think the file system 'view' should be 
more dynamic, and based upon who is using the OS (maybe depending on 
different user classes).  Regular users obviously do not need access to 
OS files, and should never know they even exist.  Sys Admins would have 
a different view, and the OS developer would have another view as well. 
 Maybe this could be thought of as 'blackboxing' the system.

I'm sure these ideas could be implimented easily enough through 
metadata, extended attributes, or whatever you want to call them.

Some of the things BEOS did with metadata were nice.

--James