> > There were precedents, like podfuk-smb based on Coda, but it did not become
> > popular enough to be maintained, and there is no such one now...
> 
> Podfuk got renamed to uservfs (uservfs.sourceforge.net). Then there is a 

podfuk-smb is SMB fs implementation via Coda kernel module, not included with
podfuk or uservfs. It can be found e.g. at
http://ccache.samba.org/ftp/unpacked/podfuk-smb/

 * A modified podfuk to provide a Network Neighbourhood type arrangement
 * within a Unix filesystem.
 *
 * Podfuk pretends to be the Coda cache manager Venus.
  ...
 * Based on podfuk.c by Pavel Machek.
 *
 * Copyright 2000 Tim Potter, tpot_at_linuxcare.com.au
 * Copyright 1999 Pavel Machek, pavel_at_ucw.cz

It is an old code and it is simplistic (which I like :)
and it looks having been fully functional.

If somebody cheers it up to work in a modern enviroment,
it would be useful, not least as an "educational tool" about
how filesystems should be connected together in the name space.
It mounts smbfs in the Coda's fashion, via one and only /smb mountpoint.

Solaris could profit from podfuk-smb as it lacks smbfs.
(when we fix the Solaris kernel module for current 64-bits kernels)

For Linux and *BSD their kernel support for CIFS is certainly more efficient
than podfuk-smb (podfuk-smb has Coda's full-file-caching limitations).

Regards,
--
Ivan