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GmailFS - The Google File System

Posted by timothy on from the never-meant-to-be dept.

Scott Granneman writes "Looking to use that new Gmail account for something really innovative? How about combining it with a brand new filesystem for Linux? Then GmailFS might be the answer: 'GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. ... GmailFS supports most file operations such as read, write, open, close, stat, symlink, link, unlink, truncate and rename.'"

7 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. This seems horribly abusive of Google. by Sheetrock · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They've already made it plain they don't want third-party email account checkers; now you're going to subject them to transient file storage addons?

    They're supporters of Linux. Somehow, it doesn't seem like a very "on the spoke" maneuver to aggravate them.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    1. Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Black hat hacking is clearly causing white hat hackers to lose toys these days...

      Take the XM-PCR case as an example. XM clearly went out of their way to provide an easy-to-hack-with-a-computer model of their devices. However, they provided that model with the unspoken proviso that it must be used ethically.

      Along comes a programmer with script-kiddie level skills who makes an automatic MP3 maker program that uses that device. That alone would have been fine by XM. However, that programmer decides to try to make a quick buck out of his work by selling it for $20 a copy. Furthermore, once media attention discovers his program, he raises the price.

      That's the kind of thing that awakens the sleeping RIAA, and the RIAA orders XM to send the programmer a legal nastygram in order to show that he is approching the limits of an untested area of law. Of course, Slashdot groupthink blames XM for the letter and calls for a boycott.

      Please people... RTFM before you start hacking anything. Especially, follow what the device makers tell you not to do, and don't try to seek direct obvious profits from your hacking.

      We're seeing far to many cases of one black hat who comes up with the "forbiden hack" that causes a company that puts out a hack-friendly device to wish they never had and want to take the hacking tools they gave the world back. Can't we be nice to the suppliers of such devices so that such devices keep coming out?

    2. Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by azaris · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're seeing far to many cases of one black hat who comes up with the "forbiden hack" that causes a company that puts out a hack-friendly device to wish they never had and want to take the hacking tools they gave the world back. Can't we be nice to the suppliers of such devices so that such devices keep coming out?

      I wouldn't call a piece of software that permits legal fair use to be "black hat". It's also strange that normally corporations who stomp on hackers trying to leverage their devices or services for relatively moderate ends get lambasted on /. but when that corporation happens to be Apple or Google, a lot of slashdotters put on the white knight armor and ride to the resque of an entity that surely has enough lawyers to fend off for themselves.

      Realistically though, GmailFS is and always will be a quirk. They can of course break it any time they want but since 1 gigabyte in storage space costs, what, a handful of glass beads nowadays, do you really think enough people will bother with this to cause serious scalability problems for a search engine company that handles a hundred million hits per day?

      To sum it up: wake up, Gmail isn't going to be cancelled just because somebody made a cute hack to use it as a filesystem. You can still pretend to be part of a special in-crowd of Google lovers because you managed to beg an invite off of someone.

    3. Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by RadGeekAuburn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Playing different regions games on your Xbox, PS2 or a DVD movie, hell, the whole chipping concept, using your Xbox joystick on your computer and visa versa, ripping DVD's, coping cd's, using a CueCat to scan your own barcodes, using a standalone email device with a different internet provider bypassing the monthly fee, ink jet refill kits, taking apart and reusing a disposible digital camera, pringles can for an antennea, using your wireless card as an access point, using GMail storage as a filesystem, changing hard coded default passwords, overclocking your MB or processor, removing resistor R232 from your cd burner to make it a 16x model instead of an 8x, flashing bios to get extra functionality of the next model, soldering a jumper to enable an extra feature. People will always attempt to bypass, modify, or extend the functionality of something. All it takes is one smart person to figure it out and let others know. I look at things from a different prespective. I do not view it as a company "letting" you do something with your hardware, ...

      [emphasis added --RGA]

      But, of course, when you use GMail storage for something that Google does not intend, you are not doing something with your hardware. You are doing something with someone else's hardware (and that is what makes it unlike all of the other cases that you cited).

  2. Re:why? by Tongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do men climb mountains, why do they explore new lands, why do they explore space or the depths of the oceans. Mankind does it because it's there (or can be done).

  3. Dont care if Google dont like it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now this is hacking. An off the wall idea and dare I say it, something uniqu, turned inot reality.

    Kids, look at this as an example of what sideways thinking can do. I love it - more because the true spirit of hacking is proven alive, rather than what it does.

    Although, that's pretty cool too.

  4. Re:This seems NOT horribly abusive of Google. by lombre · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is not an abuse of Google. Google only offers 1 G which is only 1% of the typical hard drive today, or just a little more than a CD. Performance will be abismal.

    Except for offline backup (which you could already manually use GMail for) this is not very useful. Even for that it isn't really useful since Google could cancel you account if they don't like how you use it.

    This is really just expression of "I could do it".

    Even so, if they used the gimick of 1 G of email for marketing but expected nobody to use it, tough, they don't get to completely control how you use their product.

    As far as the XM-PCR, this is just the like a VCR for XM radio. How is this an abuse? The recording is analog, all the program does is allow a time shift. These are all things that anybody could do manually for a long time. Should we take away VCRs and Tivo just because broadcasters would prefer we had to watch TV under their rules?

    You already have the capacity but not the right to sell or distribute most of the content that XM transmits.

    They did not go "out of their way". They did it to sell more subscriptions.

    This program actually makes XM radio more marketable.

    When you create a product, you do not get to regulate every thing your customers do with it. Soon we will have Kellogs telling us that we cannot make our own rice krispie bars (i.e. we have to buy their Rice Krispie Treats) with the box of cereal we bought as this violates the "license".