What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?

[Stan Switzer]

In article <8380 at june.cs.washington.edu> ka at june.cs.washington.edu (Kenneth Almquist) writes:
> James Buster asks what kinds of things should be in th GNU kernel:
> 
> > Networking:	NFS? RFS? Something better?
> 
> Something better.  I would like to see a distributed file system along
> the lines of the Sprite file system or the Apollo Domain file system.
> The features I want are:
> 
>     1)	A single global name space.  A file should have the same name
> 	regardless of which system it is being accessed from.

I really don't understand why people just assume that this would be a
good idea.  Do they _really_ mean _global_?  Do they mean that no
matter where I am in the world, a given path will always give me the
same file?  I wonder what /bin/sh is, then.

It seems to me that there should be some space in which files can be
globally and unambiguously identified.  The structure of this name
will most likely reflect the hierarchy of naming administrations under
which it is registered rather than anything particularly meaningful.
As a separate matter, there should be a space or spaces in which files
are named in a manner convenient to the users and applications.  This
naming scheme might very well vary from system to system or even from
user to user on the same system.

One should also consider, in this last regard, that there are
organizations other than hierarchical worth considering (attribute
based naming, for instance).

>     3) If a file cannot be accessed because the system it is on is
> 	down or unreachable, the user should be notified quickly.

In many cases it will be difficult to find a user.  I am thinking of
intrinsicly graphical, multi-windowed user interfaces here.  Would
logging an error message on the "console" be sufficient?

We have got to figure out how to stop constantly emulating terminals.
Maybe a "visual shell" is in order.  What are the implications on
external program interfaces?  Will argv[] and the fd vector be a
sufficient mechanism, or will something entirely different be
necessary (for instance service port capabilities)?  Let's plug
programs (modules) together like tinker-toys (down with syntax, I want
to program using pictures and gestures!).

Stan Switzer  sjs at ctt.bellcore.com