Lets try a parable. If you're a Mac user, even a brand new switcher, chances are you've heard of "Cocoa". In vague terms, that's Apple's fancy API for writing all kinds of applications. If you don't know what "API" means, think of it as a parts bin. Developers use software "parts" to "create" applications. A group of standardized/well-established parts is called an API. Sort of. Sometimes the term "software library" is also used in this context.
If you haven't heard of Cocoa, maybe you've heard of WebKit, which, again, in vague terms, can be thought of as a large software library used to write the Safari web browser, among other things. Some non- Apple browsers, such as Google's Chrome web browser, also use WebKit. Cocoa and WebKit are used both by Apple for writing their own applications and by third party developers big and small. Now, imagine you are a Mac user using some application that is written using Cocoa, or WebKit, or maybe both. Lets say it's called TheFancyApp and it's made by a company called The Old Acme Software House, LLC. Suppose you have some issues with TheFancyApp. Maybe you don't understand how it works. Maybe it misbehaves or malfunctions, at least in your opinion. Maybe you really need somebody to explain to you how it works and what to do about your issues. Maybe it caused you some data loss or emotional loss and you are hopping mad--rightly so, at least in your opinion. And so on. Which of the following sounds like a more reasonable approach? 1) Go complain to Apple because Cocoa and WebKit are somehow involved. Heck, chances are, even Mac OS X is involved. What's more, since your brand new Mac Pro is undoubtedly running on Intel chips, maybe Intel needs to get involved too. Sounds like a plan. 2) Talk to the folks at The Old Acme Software House. They probably have heard of this problem before. And in case they haven't, they'd sure like to know. Since they wrote this application, they probably know their way around Cocoa and WebKit. Even if it turns out to be an issue with Cocoa or WebKit, they'd know whom to report it to and how to do it. If you chose 1), no worries. Lets try again. Please go back to the beginning of this post and retrace your steps. If we're good so far, then here are some more things to realize. MacFUSE (like Cocoa and WebKit) is a software library. It provides a bunch of APIs (parts). It's NOT an application. It doesn't "run". NTFS-3G (like Safari and TheFancyApp) is an application. It uses parts from the MacFUSE parts bin. It absolutely needs MacFUSE to run on Mac OS X, but it's NTFS-3G, not MacFUSE, that's ultimately letting you have read/write access to your NTFS drives. Similarly, the FUSE-based sshfs is an application. It absolutely needs MacFUSE to run on Mac OS X, but it's sshfs, not MacFUSE, that's ultimately letting you use SFTP to "mount" directories on remote machines as "drives". Similarly, ExpanDrive is an application. It absolutely needs MacFUSE to run on Mac OS X, but it's ExpanDrive, not MacFUSE, that's ultimately letting you use SFTP, FTP, and perhaps some other protocols to "mount" directories on remote machines as "drives". OK, so what does MacFUSE do then? Well, on all mainstream operating systems, including Mac OS X, writing software that looks and behaves like a "file system" is incredibly complex and time-consuming. In particular, doing so requires the developer to write a lot of kernel code, which most developers don't want to do for semi-rational reasons. MacFUSE does a whole lot of the complex stuff "once and for all" and makes the result available to any developer as a... you guessed it: parts bin. This way, developers have a much easier starting point and they have much less code to write because they can all share the common parts bin. Anyway, for any question related to some vague mixture of MacFUSE and NTFS (and variations of it: NTSF, NSFT, NFST, BOOTCAMP, etc.), please go to the NTFS-3G forum: http://tuxera.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4 Amit --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacFUSE" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macfuse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
