Patent ID: 7293033

Claim:
A computer system for providing access to shareable files of a plurality of local user processes, comprising: an operating system; a processor; a file system locally mounted in the operating system; the plurality of local user processes running locally in the computer system under control of the operating system; each user of a plurality of users having at least one corresponding local user process; a sharable file tree storing each shareable file having a file path; the file system receiving a first local user process request for accessing a shareable file but not to modify the shareable file, the accessing is being executed by using any local user process of the plurality of the local user processes, wherein each shareable file of the shareable files is being accessible using file system calls, and said each shareable file is stored in a file storage memory location; the computer system separately creating, for each user of the plurality of users, a user file tree, the user file tree is linked with the shareable file tree, and with local user processes, the shareable file tree mounted locally in the file system, wherein the user file tree comprises at least one link inside the file system, wherein the link is connected with a file path of a referenced file accessible using the file system calls of the operating system, such that the user file tree points to the referenced file in response to a local user process for a request to access a file; multiple user file trees and the shareable file tree have a same mounting point; said computer system allowing each user of a private file area to define a permitted access to a selected shareable file without copying the selected shareable file into a user's private file area, and accessing only files in a file linked with the mounting point corresponding to the user's private file area; wherein each user's private file area storing a file accessible using the file system calls of the operating system, but there are no paths for other user's local user processes to access files from any other local user's private file area of the computer system by using the file system calls of the operating system, and the file system deletes a selected private file stored in the private file area, deletes a link connected to the selected private file in the user file tree upon receiving a second local user process request.