Attributes:
- exist outside the versioning system (are non-versioned, can be changed any time)
- are used extensively by vesta to record metadata both on files and directories (such as .. ?)
- allow *arbitrary names and values*, with no difference between user-defined attributes and standard / system / core ones (note: nothing stops you messing around with the "normal" attribs and screwing up your repository / replication / etc...I think?)
- can be used to write major applications on top of vesta, by allowing you to attach arbitrary metadata values to any source/resource/etc that's in your repository; you still need to provide your own programming language to edit these values, however - shell scripting using the vesta "vattrib" tool is a common approach