Really any remote file protocol can do this. The difference is that OS X bundles software to mount webdav servers without any fancy configuration. On Linux virtually any protocol for managing remote files has a FUSE implementation that lets you treat them like files on your own system. Most of these should compile just fine on OS X but no one uses them because people have gotten used to the far-worse option of a lot of apps having built-in support for several file-transfer protocols, and then having a basic client application for manually transfering files for applications without built-in support.

I agree with you. I also like the idea of a remote file system as a standard protocol.

There are a lot of complaints here that it is too complex or that it should be json rather than xml. How many people are developing their own WebDAV libraries? I like that I can grab a WebDAV library and add remote file support to my software.

It isn't perfect, but it works

What about samba/shared folders, ftp, or even sshfs if you are a unix user.

If you like Emacs, there is Tramp, and I know Vim has something equivalent.

I have tried a number of the ones that you and others mention. The security was awful. They would create the remote drive (or whatever) automatically, all the time. eek! I want to have to log in first.

It has been a few years since I have tried. I hope something has improved.

Again, basically, I would prefer to edit in Notepad++ or Sublime instead of vi. Personal preference.

SFTP, or really any other file protocol. I guess it comes with its own quirks but at least it's faster.

There used to be a remoteStorage FUSE module, not sure if it still works.

It was never quite finished, as the protocol was missing some features at the time (content types in folder listings e.g.).

Should be rather easy to implement, though. Here's the old repo: https://github.com/remotestorage/fuse

Samba, NFS, sshfs, 9P, ElasticDrive, CurlFtpFS and others.