If you allow this: open("/fuse/sockets/www.whatever.com/tcp/80", "r+") Then what do you do with these? /fuse/sockets/www.whatever.com/tcp /fuse/sockets/www.

If you allow this: open("/fuse/sockets/www.whatever.com/tcp/80", "r+") Then what do you do with these? /fuse/sockets/www.whatever.com/tcp /fuse/sockets/www.whatever.com /fuse/sockets They and other variations would each need different semantics, some allowing rw, some ro, some wo, and some not being allowed at all. Some path segments would not allow arbitrary names (tcp/udp, port number) while others require a specific format (host/ip) and others are arbitrary. Some have to be directories, some have to be files, and some are neither. None of this is very filesystem-like. I think the current design is right: opening sockets is kind of special, but you get a filehandle that is very much like an ordinary filehandle.