Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!BU-CS.BU.EDU!bzs From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: NFS Message-ID: <8612200243.AA27224@bu-cs.bu.edu> Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 21:43:15 EST Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8612200243.AA27224 Posted: Fri Dec 19 21:43:15 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 09:47:03 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 43 Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa It seems unfair to cast aspersions at those who have pioneered Network File Systems as if their implementations were somehow finished or immutable. Praise should be given to how far the publication of their efforts has brought us in thinking about the issues (and the credibility that they are worth thinking about.) I can think of another major networking protocol which prides itself on having been put into practice early in its design cycle and corrected where need be (sometimes radically) based upon concrete use rather than paper committee meetings. The name escapes me however. Issues like "file organization" between heterogeneous systems have been raised for years. I know of no protocol which attempts to solve this in general (although a few special cases -do- go a long way.) The last time someone raised this issue in my office I asked him if this problem had been solved for magnetic tapes yet on his system? If so, I proposed that I could adapt that solution to FTP (the case in point at the time) easily enough. Needless to say he walked away in a huff. Some of these issues are HARD, very hard! I wouldn't go so far as to say insoluble (I mean, people do seem to solve them manually) but I think this difficulty should be considered before saying that XYZ does not solve this. Proposals for solutions would be most welcome. I think the problem is that people either want perfect and general solutions or they throw up their hands entirely. My suspicion is that the best solution will be the ability to code modules at an application level to handle the various permutations of file access methods between systems and let the libraries blossom out of the user community. Extensibility seems to be the key need here. And practice. As a more concrete example, why shouldn't FTP allow me to specify input and output filter programs on both ends, provided as a library by the systems? The same sort of thing should work for Network File Systems, although the ability to type files and have these "daemons" invoked automatically would probably be the right approach. Given a few years of that I suspect the "standards" would begin to reveal themselves. -Barry Shein, Boston University