Comment by leoc

11 years ago

> FILEFOLDERS

> TAOS stores objects onto mass storage media like hard disks via the mailbox system, in objects called 'filefolders'. A filefolder has some similarities to a DOS or Unix directory, but rather than being a passive storage structure it is an active object (in fact a control object). The tools attached to every filefolder are responsible for storing and retrieving objects from the folder and for negotiating with the hardware device drivers that are necessary for this transfer. Because filefolders are actually instances of a broader category of TAOS object called 'filters' they may also process the data they transfer, for example compressing and expanding it transparently to the user.

Emphasis added. Oh, it seems they were so close here. The biggest central problem with Unix mount, apart from synchonous/trusted I/O, is that the things that are exposed to the OS through mounting are only files, and never processes ...

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leoc

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linschn  11 years ago

> The biggest central problem with Unix mount, apart from synchonous/trusted I/O, is that the things that are exposed to the OS through mounting are only files, and never processes ...

With plan9port https://swtch.com/plan9port/ you can mount processes on any UNIX.

  • leoc  11 years ago

    Sorry, I'm not as familiar with Plan 9 as I should be. I know that it has (and emphasises) user-space mount, but it is my understanding that the entities exposed to the OS through mounting are files, not processes. (Including through /proc, which exposes a directory tree of files containing data about processes, not processes themselves.)