Of course it's simple to do for every app. But they have to keep that database updated. Either by running a service and listening to all changes to the file sys

Of course it's simple to do for every app. But they have to keep that database updated. Either by running a service and listening to all changes to the file system or by running it from scratch every so often. Neither is a good idea from a performance point of view. I can see where you're coming from with the false start if looking at it from that isolated point of view. I see it more as the first step to storing data, in general, in an RDBMS and once applications start to utilize that, new use cases will start to emerge. Linux in particular with it's "everything is a file" philosophy seems to suited to use this model. A table for processes, files, network connections, ect.