Zero Install uses an NFS to both run *and* install apps from. The apps are all self-contained in their own directory; binaries, docs, source code and all. Once the app has been downloaded its kept in a cache from that point on to minimize delay. The beauty becomes apparent when Zero Install is combined with ROX which runs the application by just clicking on the directory it was installed to. Deleting the application along with all the other misc files is as simple as removing the directory it's contained in. This method of partitioning applications in their own directories also allows installing multiple versions of any application trivial.

There actually is some innovation involved, but it's not what this
slashdotter thinks. It comes from combining these two old-news
features with another one, cachefs, allowing you to run new apps
from a server transparently, caching components locally for speed.
Although it sounds like this guy wrote his own file-system kernel
module rather than using existing ones, which is generally a bad sign.