How about having a bit somewhere in the directory entry or inode that says that
this directory is really a compound document.
Then you could modify ls to use a different character when you use the -F or
--classify options, and to only show the directory entry unless you explicitly
specify compound_document/*.
Modify backup and possibly tar to save the bit.
And modify GUI's and mail packages could then recognize it as a compound
document.
I know some mail packages on the Mac already can send Mac files, I've received
Word files from friends. It's usually an attachment with two attachments in it
and I have to remember to get the data fork.
And if some was trying to use a compound document on a platform that didn't
support this, it could be stored in a normal directory.
The biggest problem I see with trying to do something too different on Linux is
that most of the people who write Linux applications want them to be portable
and if the other platforms don't support a new feature, they won't use it.
BTW: I havn't heard a description of what the people in Redmond are doing with
this. One reason to do something like this would be to make it easy for the
samba and the wine people and also for people who are porting applications to
Linux.
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