Re: Re: Re: Linux versus GNU/Linux...

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 03, 2000 at 07:44:00AM +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
> At 10:02 PM 3/2/00 +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> 
> > >No!  How do we get our daily dose of fun then?
> >
> >http://www.microsoft.com (specifically their press releases).
> 
> 
> Here is one such. Have fun...This time they are claiming to have "invented" 
> symlinks, at least 30 years after it showed up in Multics (UNIX symlinks 
> are modeled after these)

The thing that's new in MS implementation is the duplication of data is
automatically detected. They must be computing checksums on each file and
keeping the checksums on all the files in a hash table or something.

New files will be looked up in the hash table to see if they already
exist and if so, a hard link would be created.

The tradeoff between the new functionality and the complexity introduced
into the OS is questionable to say the least. I'd rather have such 
functionality implemented at the app level - in a mail server(MTA) for example
rather than the OS doing it for me.

	-Arun