Alternative "filesystem"

[barmyjeffers]

Hey everybody,

Probably not an original idea but here goes:

Filesystem - not directory based. Instead split into 3 different "spaces":

Kernel space - ONLY the kernel has access to this space.
Program space - each program has access to it's own space and ONLY it's own space.
User space - this is the ONLY space the user has access to.

The files in user space are grouped according to tags. A file can have many or no tags. The tags are things like "photo", "document", "barmy", "family" etc. The file type is attached as a ?readonly? tag.

All of the files have an i.d. identifying them. They also have the usual date created/date edited etc.

The file system is an index of the files according to tags.

The file system will need to provide access to the files via:

1. A list of files with a given tag/tags
2. A list of tags
3. A list of tags attached to files with a given list of tags (e.g. all tags that also have photo attached)
4. An individual file with a given i.d.

What do you think???

Barmy

[mathematician]

I think you're right, it's not a new idea. It sounds a bit like the BeOS file system, except that the latter retains a directory structure.

The other difference, come to think of it, is that the BeOS system doesn't have seperate partitions for OS, apps and data.

[earlz]

well, what if you put your music in the user area, but a media player program wanted to access it, how could that be implemented?

[barmyjeffers]

Well...originality isn't everything!!!

Good point. Maybe something along the lines of a DMZ where files are copied at the request of users?? That might be a bit hard disk intensive though. Perhaps an access token could be issued by the user that gives access to that file only?

I was also wondering about files with the same name but I don't suppose it'll matter. Each file will be identified by it's ID not name and it could be auto-tagged with the application that created it...

Barmy

[B.E]

you could simply change a constraint. for example:

Program space - each program has access to it's own space and ONLY it's own space.

could be changed to.

Program space - each program has access to it's own space and the logged in users own space.

Also this would also solve the problems of both security (e.g A word program could potentially read any document that was open by any user without authentication) and user program customization (i.e users couldn't customize an application to there own preference without effecting other user's preferences).

For the file name problem, you could either add sub-tags (tags within tags) or as you said identify them by ID (although this solution adds another problem, how can the user differentiate between two files of the same name, the file system would know but the user would have trouble).