What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?

[Guy Harris]

>How does the kernel become more complicated just because file names
>can be 255 characters long instead of 14?  Just change a #define'd
>constant and away you go.

Assuming the extra space taken up by 258-byte (or 260-byte) directory
entries - or the extra time it takes to zip through the bigger
directories - isn't a problem.  I guess Kirk McKusick thought they
*were* a problem, and added a more complicated scheme to permit
variable-length directory entries. 

>Considering that C provides poor support for character strings that may
>or may not be null-terminated (the format in which the short filenames
>are stored), the Berkeley directory format may actually result in a
>simpler kernel!

Well, it *didn't* result in a simpler kernel.  The added complication of
dealing with "null-or-size-terminated strings" is pretty minimal.

I like long file names, too, but you *do* have to admit that the BSD
file system's directory-handling code is more complicated, in part, due
to the more complicated directory entry structure.