Unionfs etc Re: Packaging

[Joerg Sonnenberger]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 03:16:26PM -0800, James Frazer wrote:
> 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.

No. This is wrong. You can use views to restrict users to view only
programs they want to use, the needed shared libraries and some devices.
But you can't enforce an even stricter view (e.g. only the documents) since
the applications just won't work anymore.

Such a strict "filter" belongs into userland applications and only there.

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

We have quite a few things [or will have] which could make good use
of extended attributes. Nobody volunteered yet to part it :)

> Some of the things BEOS did with metadata were nice.

I'd like to use EAs for security related features, but there quite a few
other uses as well.

Joerg

> --James