Summary: Web File System: File­like Access to the Web
Atul Adya Joseph Bank Jim Napier Jordan Slott H.B. Weinberg \Lambda
1 Introduction
The Web File System (WFS) is a file system interface
to the World Wide Web This interface helps leverage ex­
isting investment in file system based tools by allowing
them to access the Web as if it were a file system. Be­
cause it is implemented as an NFS server, WFS works
without modification to standard file system clients or
Web servers. We do not propose the file system inter­
face as an alternative to the existing graphical interfaces;
these will remain the prefered method of access for hu­
mans. Instead, WFS speaks to a disenfranchised commu­
nity --- our old friends like find, grep, csh and perl
that until now were largely barred from the Web. We
also believe that WFS will make it easier to develop new
Web savvy applications by shielding programmers from
the details of Web protocols.
2 Interface
What is a file system interface to the Web? At a high

Source: Adya, Atul - Google Labs

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences