> and on many other different things like LC_ variables on linux.* The point is that it doesn't need to be. I would entertain that not everyone might not want

> and on many other different things like LC_ variables on linux.* The point is that it doesn't need to be. I would entertain that not everyone might not want to use Unicode: in that case, the FS should still have a well-defined encoding, such that I can still arrive at a string to display to the user. The point is not that "Unicode is best" but that storing file names as "bags of bytes" is incredibly user unfriendly, and there needs to be a straightforward, no bullshit method to display and transmit the names of files. But I would also argue that Unicode is the best we've got presently, and it would be pragmatic for a filesystem to simply adopt it outright. It's overwhelmingly the dominant character set in use today, especially if you ignore deprecated junk that Unicode is a strict superset of.