Vnodes: An Architecture for Multiple File System Types in Sun UNIX.

TLDR

File system operations should be atomic and exposed at a high level so that locking is handled by the file system implementation rather than across multiple operations. The paper proposes giving file system dependent code full information about each operation so it can decide the necessary locking.

Abstract

All file system operations should be atomic. In other words, the set of interface operations should be at a high enough level so that there is no need for locking (hard locking, not user advisory locking) across several operations. Locking, if required, should be left up to the file system implementation dependent layer. For example, if a relatively slow computer running a remote file system requires a supercomputer server to lock a file while it does several operations, the users of the supercomputer would be noticeably affected. It is much better to give the file system dependent code full information about what operation is being done and let it decide what locking is necessary and practical.