AppFS ( http://appfs.rkeene.org/ http://appfs.rkeene.org/ ) aims to solve the packaging problem in a way that is very similar to this line of thinking. Softwar

AppFS ( http://appfs.rkeene.org/ http://appfs.rkeene.org/ ) aims to solve the packaging problem in a way that is very similar to this line of thinking. Software is just files on disk, rather than statically linking (and this duplicating) to libraries we can use references to the libraries (dynamic linking), the issue is the user has to install the software and its dependencies then. AppFS solves this by not having an install step. All files in all AppFS packages in all the world show up in the filesystem if you look for them. They are then cached to disk if you try to use them. So if you had a package X that depended on library Y you simply run the binary you want from X and any libraries from Y will get used. Since AppFS is a global namespace using HTTP, it has very similar semantics to the WWW, just with symlinks or ELF NEEDED entries instead of hyperlinks. So you, as a developer can publish software that depends on the software another developer publishes, and the user can fetch the software directly from you without there ever being an install step.