WinFS seems to have been cancelled-- sort of. "These changes do mean that we are not pursuing a separate delivery of WinFS, including the previously planned Beta 2 release. With most of our effort now working towards productizing mature aspects of the WinFS project into SQL and ADO.NET, we do not need to deliver a separate WinFS offering."
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2005-07-23
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2005-10-02
WinFS as a file system is dead.
However, it doesn't mean (AFAIC read it) that all parts of WinFS is dead. Some parts still live on in other forms.
But the FS in WinFS is gone. It's no longer sleeping. It's stonedead.
An alternative version of the WinFS development:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm
Member since:2005-06-29
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Member since:2005-06-29
WinFS was meant to be an object-oriented, relational filesystem to be run on top of a real filesystem.
I always thought it was a sort of database running on top of NTFS. Check the line I quoted from your post, doesn't 'database' fit in better there?
Also, where in the article does it say WinFS is a filesystem? I can't seem to find it-- however, might be me being stupid.
Edited 2006-06-25 12:45
Member since:2005-10-02
It is a sort of database.
But it's also a sort of high-level FS running on top of a low-level FS.
It's a database-like FS-extension.
Am I getting closer to something you can recognize?
The article does not directly use the word "filesystem" but I've always considered WinFS to be a high-level object-oriented, relational file system. So the 4th paragraph sort of points it out for me. Phrases like "richer store", "storage innovations" are what I consider part of a high-level FS.
It fits into what I've learned about FS. The classical Mac FS is a rich storage FS.
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I'm not aware of such statements.
I am however aware that it's not a classical FS in any low-level sense, but I'm not aware they have claimed that it's not a FS in a high-level sense.
The article clearly shows that WinFS _was_ intended as a FS.
How come the developers are saying it is dead as a high-level file system if it wasn't intended to be such a thing?
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I know what it is for, and so does the developers.
I also know the problems it solves (at least some of them) and some of the problems it creates (at least some of them).
The fact that someone got confused doesn't mean devs are confused, just that that someone didn't know better.
Member since:2005-09-03
I do not understand what it is for and I think most of the resons for it that i saw on the internet where bad reasons. I get the feeling It was a nice freak project for the developers but it was never going somewhere usefull. Maybe you can give me some reasons why it is important?
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2005-07-07
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2006-01-16
BeFS also has database features. Still it's a file system.
"In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them."
-- Wikipedia
So, this is what WinFS was supposed to do; although with the help of an underlying layer (NTFS).
It works like a database, fine, but it's a file system. You can use every file system as a database, although some fit in good, others (most) not.
Member since:2005-07-17
BeFS is what they were trying to make from the start if you look at the early documents.. but politics gets in the way, so they tweak the specs until it fit their business model. A file system like BeFS or Reiser4 is incredibly disruptive to the current software market. To really be effectual means the concepts of "applications" and "file systems" as we know them now won't work anymore.
The best real-world example of a database/file system is IBM's OS400. It's neat how you can use the native programming language to treat information like database or a file depending on what you need to do with it. The down-side is that the regular model of application development doesn't really apply. The OS400 application landscape's resembles the way BeOS was heading where "applications" are basically scripts written right to the OS, or they are "modules" that provide a complex feature... but you can't control the use of modules being strung together for new tasks because anything on the system can use the new feature once it's added. I think Plan 9 took this even farther, but it was so far ahead of it's time nobody wanted it.
WinFS implemented correctly would destroy the entire windows application market overnight... it would reduce all but the most complex tasks (i.e. 3-d gaming, finite element analysis, and the such) to being as complex as "web pages" over the file system. ISVs would be screaming, and Microsoft wouldn't make any money from selling expensive server licenses anymore... or ALL windows licenses would have to be expensive. Mega sized, closed applications would be dead, the idea of proprietary data types that you use expensive programs to access would be dead as well once you start putting all the data in neat, DB like file system attributes.
Bacically, they've cut the legs out from under it so many times for "business" reasons it's just another pretty file system search engine... their loss.
Member since:2005-06-30
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The OS400 application landscape's resembles the way BeOS was heading where "applications" are basically scripts written right to the OS, or they are "modules" that provide a complex feature... but you can't control the use of modules being strung together for new tasks because anything on the system can use the new feature once it's added.
What you describe sounds more like the result of an object-oriented environment, that's scriptable from a CLI. Aka Monad (now known as the Windows PowerShell) combined with Aero (.Net 2.0?).
Member since:
2005-07-06
The ideas of the functionality WinFS would have delivered will live on, as Microsofts competitors felt the need to offer something similar. Apple developed Spotlight, and in the free software world there is Beagle.
Of course these things are based on quite different technology, but from the user perspective they will satisfy the same needs.
I'm little surprised though, that the free sofware world didn't do a more closer copy of the WinFS technology. i.e. ordinary file system + relational database. (No, I'm not implying they are copycats).
The reason for this line of thinking, is that files in filemanagers such as Nautilus are allready monitored for changes by fam/imon/gamin. This is needed to keep the filemanagers view of the filesystem up to date even if files are created or deleted or changed by other programs.
It wouldn't have been rocket science to store and index file system meta data in a relational database when changes was detected by fam/imon/gamin. Whith things like postgresql tsearch2 we even could have had a full text index of the contents of the files.
With such system we could have asked questions like "give me all html files on my webserver that links to this document" provided we developed a filter to extract links. We could have tagged documents with kewords, and do searches for similar documents, or even better, used trigrams to find similar ones.
Perhaps the reason this havn't happened yet is performance, or perhaps it is just as simple as most people are more interested in searching for the contents of their files (handled well by Beagle) rather than meta data or relations to other documents.
Anyway, all the bragging about how good WinFS will be have have put the need for searchable filesystems in the spotlight, and this is a good thing regardles what OS we use.
Member since:
2006-06-19
okay, i think we about decided it is a sort-of-file-system-with-database-capability-extensions
does that about sum it up?
Could this be the reason it is dead is that nobody at MS knew what the hell it was suppose to be? 
Either way - with vista they should of took XP, rolled in the latest drivers, came up with a new theme, built in a few new things and changed the way you do everything and how everything looks, increase security a bit and rolled it out as the new windows.
Even Debian releases faster than microsoft! (just a joke guys, just a joke, dont mod me to hell and back)
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2005-07-06
Member since:2005-10-02
If you make that the early 90'es or late 80'es for home computers then you'll be right.
But actually the functionality of NTFS+WinFS is several decades old.
You could put it this way: Functionality wise the filesystem of the first Mac will be more advanced than that of Vista 
EDIT: There is no need for hidden files to hold meta-data. NTFS supports extended file attributes. First step would be to use them, second step would be to index that information.
Edited 2006-06-25 17:20
Member since:2005-04-01
This is the kind of silly comment you see a lot. You do realize that UFS is AGES older than NTFS, right? That ext2, which I'd guess still powers most Linux servers, is older than NTFS? Right? NTFS 5, which runs in XP, is a very advanced fully journaled file system. It doesn't do with metadata what we'd all like, but it's not any older of an FS than what many other systems are using.
Member since:
2005-07-06
It's easy to understand this one. They felt that putting WinFS in Windows as a component, and new database technology, would theaten the ability to make money out of SQL Server. Therefore they're going to try and make yet more money by bundling WinFS into SQL Server and touting it as a *new* feature.
As a feature in Windows, with metadata, tagging, advanced search and a new way of looking at a filesystem WinFS is as dead as a dodo. Unless of course, you cough up for SQL Server.
Member since:2005-07-06
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One could claim that they waited so long for it, in order to create common interest in WinFS, in turn making everybody excited about this feature. I don't see what MS would gain from that, but one could claim this to be the reason.
Personally I consider this a result of bad marketing decisions, and not much more.
I don't think they've been thinking long enough about this.
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