Re: Is this for systemd?
My guess is that ADS was originally intended to be a VMS like file versioning tool, but was never implemented. Later, it was repurposed to support appletalk file sharing with Services for Macintosh. Even later, it was relegated to use as metadata storage to tag files as having been downloaded by Internet Explorer.
There's a lot of weird nooks and crannies in Windows that seem like they were intended to be useful, but were never completed. Symbolic links, hard links, mount points. At one point they had most of a Heirarchial Storage System integrated, using tape libraries and ntbackup, but I think it's completely bit-rotted away by now.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
