File System Kudzu

[guy at gorodish.UUCP]

>I would like the POSIX committee (or somebody equivalent) to address
>this issue, altho I admit it is premature at this stage. First we have
>to define what unix is before we redefine it.

I would like the POSIX committee to stay the heck away from this
issue, as it's not its business to say where various files live.
Many of the files being discussed here should NOT be accessed
directly by applications; applications should go through a standard
interface to perform various functions, and it's the business of the
implementation of that interface to say where the files live, if the
implementation uses files at all.  (E.g., there IS no "/etc/passwd"
in POSIX; there are "getpwent", "getwpuid", and "getpwnam" functions,
which is as it should be.  It is not the business of any standard to
say anything whatsoever about a file named "/etc/passwd" or any file
like it.)

POSIX isn't trying to define UNIX.  It's trying to define a standard
interface to various operations, modeled after the interface defined
in UNIX; this interface need not be implemented on top of anything
even remotely resembling UNIX.