I agree with most of what you said. I used AFS, managed it, loved it. It
is the best distributed filesystem in the world. However the reality is,
it'll remain a niche product.
The future document sharing (I don't really want to use the word file
sharing, 'cause the very concept of file sharing is becoming outdated by
the web revolution) protocol would likely being based on some sort of HTTP.
You mentioned the difficulties ftp'ing your webpage to your ISP. Too bad,
Microsoft has taken on this already. M$'s way of managing web page
remotely involves NT authentication and some sort of DCOM object control
mechanism. Even if Sun and Netscape manage to survive the onslaught of
IIS/MSIE the upload part of the game will likely involve Java and some sort
of NFS.
I personally think Microsoft being damn smart to figure this out so
quickly. Netscape knows it, but being a browser/webserver only company has
a huge disadvantage of reshaping how people work.
The very concept of people working on some Office softwares and tools
sifting thru a global filesystem to get/manipulate information is shaken
up by the web. I work in a company which has 90% of people working
at client sites. Most of the business process of my company is done thru
the web. I do my timesheet, performance reviews, expense report, telephone
interviews reports, etc,etc thru a web browser. What do I need a filesystem
for?
Yes, I use Netscape.
-Mike
http://www.colltech.com
> From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thu May 28 15:07:30 1998
> I would appreciate everyone's view point on this subject...
>
> I believe most people on this mailing list use and like AFS. It has puzzled
> me a long time why AFS has not taken off on the Internet. Other inferior
> network file systems, such as NFS and Microsoft Dfs, are rushing to define
> themselves as *the* Internet file system. At the same time, AFS, the file
> system that has been working on the Internet long before the web started,
> seems to be willingly waiting for someone else to take its market opportunity
> away.
>
> It is a HUGE opportunity that we are talking about here! Internet service
> providers have been connecting an ever-increasing number of businesses/home
> users to the Internet. But, why AFS is still only connecting just
> universities and national labs - same as 10 years ago. Why hasn't any ISP set
> up an AFS cell for its subscribers? Why do we still have to live with the
> stupid FTP for uploading our home pages or sharing files through ISP's? Why
> can't users/businesses use a general purpose Internet file system like AFS,
> instead of using clumsy work-arounds? I should be able edit my home pages and
> save them directly to the AFS server provided by my ISP - just one example!
>
> I set up an NT AFS client at home the other day, and, through an ISP dial-up,
> I was able to traverse the university cells. But what I really like to see
> would be cells like aol.com, pacbell.net, etc where my friends/family may
> share files with me EASILY (without the efforts setting up web pages and doing
> the stupid FTP).
>
> I know part of the problems is that there is no free Windows 9x clients. But
> are there any insurmountable technical difficulties? There are Windows 9x NFS
> clients and there is an NT AFS client. I don't think Windows 9x AFS client
> would be so difficult to do. But can it be free? Make the client free or
> give the market to Microsoft who is making everything (including the CIFS
> client) free to kill competition first! The business model should be "selling
> the servers"!!! At least the AFS clients should be made free (free download,
> free ISP bundling) to non-business users. Let everyone experience and love
> AFS. Once AFS becomes the de-facto standard for file sharing, applications
> will start taking advantage of AFS, and there will be an explosion in the AFS
> server market.
>
> ISP's can be one good starting point for AFS' Internet march. Once one major
> ISP starts providing AFS servers to subscribers, user will start using it for
> sharing files with friends and family with easy pointing and clicking,
> applications will soon see AFS as a viable way of internet file accessing, and
> ISP administrators will enjoy AFS' scalability and manageability. Other ISP
> will follow and ball will be rolling. The AFS server market may start like the
> RealPlayer and it may become as huge (or even bigger than) as the web-server
> market.
>
> Granted, AFS has areas to be worked on such as performance improvements for
> modem-speed access, file locking, and more general authentication/authorization
> (such as public-key certificate based) mechanisms. But it already works on
> the Internet today and it has the lead in terms of its Internet nature,
> scalability and manageability. Pessimistic minds may say that Microsoft will
> take over no matter what. Well, I don't mind hating the monopolistic monster,
> but it would really be a shame to see a working Internet file system sitting
> there 10+ years to wait for the blow from Microsoft.
>
> What is AFS waiting for, really???
>
--
Mike Wei
Collective Technologies/PSA
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
