the file system structure of mac os x is more network transparent than kde. kde of course has a very nice implementation, but it only works for kde apps. on mac os x servers like an ftp-server gets mounted directly into the file system and can be used by any application (carbon, cocoa, classic, unix...). the apps only sees a normal directory and normal files and behaves like these files are local files.

but, and it's a big but, while in theory this is really great and much better than the kde thing in praxis apple failed to fully implement it. just take ftp... it gets mounted, every app can read but no app except ones running as root can write to it...