RFS vs. NFS

[Barry Shein]

>From Doug Gwyn
>In article <7765 at apple.Apple.Com> jk at apple.UUCP (John Kullmann) writes:
>>The key difference between NFS and RFS is:
>>	Everyone wants and uses NFS and no one wants or uses RFS.
>
>Funny, I thought the difference was that RFS is NFS done right.
>
>NFS has a decisive marketing head start, but technically it has
>several problems, the worst among them being UID mapping (yellow
>pages).  I don't like the lock/stat daemons but presumably they
>at least work; the UID mapping is too restrictive (confined to
>a single subnet, requiring user-mode library changes, etc.).

I don't disagree with your criticisms Doug, they're valid and true
(not that they always cause problems, but when they do it's a big
problem.)

I know Sun has committed to fixing these things (there was a USENIX
paper in Phoenix by some Sun folks presenting a possible design, I
don't remember if general agreement was that the design was viable,
but I do believe that, just like the lock/stat daemons, they're
committed to solutions and recognize the problem, I believe SunOS4.0
due out "real soon now" will address the UID problem, I could be
wrong.)

I just heard a presentation from ANOTHER [very big] vendor on their
*own* distributed file system they were going to push instead of NFS
(tho they would support NFS, I guess, there were some tricky
if/ands/buts, all nodes equal but some nodes MORE equal sort of
logic.) Actually they were presenting two, mutually incompatible,
distributed file systems, plus NFS.

What's the expression? The great thing about standards is that there
are so many to choose from...

I honestly and sincerely believe that at this point in time, with the
ubiquitousness of NFS, efforts by vendors would be far better spent
bashing Sun to hurry up these pieces they need, or even figuring out
COMPATIBLE ways to provide them as value-added pieces of their own
product (obviously that has to be done carefully), preferably feeding
them back into the protocol standard.

Otherwise I think all these vendors, all focusing on the same exact
gripes with NFS, are just doomed to waste a lot of time and energy.

Standards and compatibility have become far more important than
nitpicking at bugs that could be fixed but instead coming out with
something incompatible.

Let's get on to something creative, not reinventing the wheel where a
bug fix would do just as well. There really are other and better fish
to fry.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University