> 
> > No. I'm not. But that's a common first reaction. The notion
> > that BSD extended attributes suffice as subfiles is a dead
> > giveaway that there is hardship confusion in the midst.
> 
> This discussion is about ACLs, not about the method by which the ACLs  
> are stored.

The subject line says ACLS *AND* Extended Attributes.

> You can store them in extattrs, you can store them in  
> subfiles (I prefer the term "named forks", myself :-), I don't care  
> (actually, I do care --- extattrs are much better for things like  
> ACLs, because they are clearly defined as "attributes", whereas  
> subfiles are in a grey area between "attributes" and "data").

Albeit what to call a named thingy, I do expect we violently
agree on the use of the word attribute. Dilution of the word
"attribute", I believe, is a large cause of the grief.

> Let's not beat the extattr horse any further... we can (and will)  
> have extattrs, and we can (and will) have named forks^W^Wsubfiles  
> (eventually).  I know of at least one file system in heavy use out  
> there in the world that has both, and I see no reason why the two  
> things are incompatible.

Ya. That's the rub. There is no NFSv4 vocabulary to have both.
It turns into expectations of file model behavior when the file
is local and NFS-remote. They should smell the same.

There is no Santa Claus. Can't have both in an interoperable world.

> > Subfiles are accesses with read/write, can be arbitrary size
> > (perhaps have holes), and contain opaque data (application
> > meaningless to kernel and over-the-wire protocols). So too
> > are the NFSv4 Named Attributes (that's the misnomer). BSD/Linux
> > named "thingies" are accessed with get/set interfaces and are
> > quite small.
> 
> Yes, I think we all understand the difference.

The comment that paragraph responded to likened extended attributes
and subfiles. Perhaps that poster is disjoint from the "all" set :)

> > Yes, the BSD/Linux named thingies may be useful internally
> > to attach non-opaque (meaningful to kernel and over-the-wire
> > protocols) attributes to a file (like ACLs). But they are
> > completely useless for userland data. And you can't have both
> > subfiles and named thingies coexist.
> 
> Nonsense!  The two can co-exist quite well together, and as I already  
> stated, there is a production file system out there in the world that  
> supports both simultaneously.

Sense! :)

Explain the linkage of NFSv4 to "both". An attempt to vindicate
Euclid from every flaw proved non-Euclidian geometry. Prove me
wrong -- it just might convince you.

> 
> -- thorpej
> 

Thanx for the response, Jason.

Cheers,
	-gww