I'm sort of hesitant to step into this, but I think that we should try
to involve the *BSD people in this, if we can find a way to work
through the personality issues involved. A non-NFS network filesystem
shared between Linux and *BSD can replace NFS in many more systems
than a Linux-only solution. Having two implementations of a shared
protocol will help the standardization process, and no one can accuse
us (rightly or wrongly) of producing yet another proprietary network
solution if we produce it jointly with the BSD groups. It's possible
that the availibility of a BSD-licensed implementation might even
convince a commercial vendor or two to add support, eventually, if the
new filesystem has enough advantages over NFS.
I don't know who is planning on working on a new network filesystem.
I'm not -- I'm planning Yet Another Journaling Filesystem right now,
and I don't have the time to pick up another project. Those that do
the work have the right to pick who they work with, but if anyone is
serious about writing a new network filesystem, then I'd strongly
suggest finding a couple BSD people that you can work with, and then
work together, jointly, to develop a solid protocol and a pair of
solid implementations. IMHO, this will help the free software
community much more than a Linux-only solution.
Scott
-- Scott A. Laird | "But this goes to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615" scott@laird.com | - Nigel on his new 64-bit computer