There is no portable way to include physical symlinks (not data shadows) in local file systems. No problem on Unix, but Windows .lnk files are in some f**ked format, and do not automatically resolve
 when read by Java, so they are no good. For other platforms, who knows.

LocalFileSystem could automatically recognize special filenames like .sym or .lnk (but this might conflict with WinDoze). Contents should be absolute filename to link to (might be present outside root
 dir of LFS). The name of the link file minus .sym should be used as the provided filename for the FileObject, while the contents should be taken from the linked-to file. Delete should delete only the
 link. Rename should rename only the link. Copy should copy the content, not the link. Links to directories should be supported and traversable. I.e., Unix symlink semantics exactly, just as if there
were OS-supported symlinks present and transparently read from Java.

This kind of system would permit people to set up symlink farms on any platform, which is important for people who do not want want to rearrange sources to keep them in a package hierarchy--they can h
ave whatever org they want on disk, and have a farm set up to mount in NB. There could also be a wizard inside NB to set up & mount such a farm from an existing set of sources, based on the package na
me.