Filesystems as Databases
Discussions debate whether filesystems function like databases, question the filesystem abstraction's suitability, and explore philosophies like 'everything is a file' from Plan 9 and Unix traditions.
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you don't need "everything is a filesystem" for that
Filesystems are DB like structures these days anyway.
Tell me more about how files are not objects and filesystems are not storage!
He's alluding to the fact that filesystems are a kind of database for files.
Do you often interact with an ext4 file system using the Linux VFS? I'm not sure it helps your "familiarity" argument. It's not just about familiarity either, it's also interoperability. Tons of 3rd party applications know how to interact with real filesystems using the standard POSIX "open", "stat", "unlink" etc... You can make incremental backups using rsync, you can use a choice of many browsers to explore its contents, you can use logrot
Plan 9 already did that in its file system...
What’s stopping other Unix-like systems from adopting the everything is a file philosophy?
What is the rationale behind abandoning the filesystem? Filesystems have served well on multiuser systems for decades but for some reason have fallen into disfavor.
The filesystem is, and has always been, a database.
That sounds like a sign that the filesystem may be the wrong abstraction for this.