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Normally i don't respond like this-but this time I can't help it....

Then it is high time for Solaris and BSD'lers to get together with the FUSE guys and work out something which allows for a common way of desktop applications tying into the archictecture specific respective VFS's.

GNOME has it's own VFS, just as KDE does. The Linux kernel has it's own VFS which with the exception of FUSE bears virtually no relation to Desktop VFS's-FUSE enables a certain degree of transparency from desktop applications all the way down to kernel files resources.

Although I do not know the specifics of the Solaris VFS or that of the BSD's, what I do know is that our desktop environments need a common way of facilitating desktop application access to kernel resources-on each and all of these platforms. If work was done to implement a set of common libraries which would expose native VFS resources masking the specific architecture differences(remember the needs of a desktop VFS are not identical with that which POSIX semantics provide at the command line/system library level) then GNOME and KDE (and other DE's too) could start to actively promote and implement rich VFS integration on a level beyond what is currently avaialbe.

Much work has been done to define the scope of a potential desktop VFS-a common desktop VFS which is DE agnostic. Up till now we have had a rather harsh divide between comand line/system library VFS(via POSIX) and desktop application VFS integration. KIO slave went a long way to amerliorate this within the KDE environment. FUSE now offers tremendous comand line/system library VFS integration for Linux. KIO slaves and FUSE is a role model of what desktop application VFS integration should look like. Solaris and the BSD's need some kind of similiar interface...


----(Linux)kernel---(linux)VFS----Fuse----Desktop Environment

----(Solaris)kernel---(Solaris)VFS----???----Desktop Environment.

----(BSD)kernel---(BSD)VFS----???----Desktop Environment.