Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
Kieren MacMillan wrote: Hello, all you BSD hackers! A major change to the file-folder-desktop metaphor is long overdue, and it seems to me that FreeBSD -- with Mac OS X as a large and growing child -- is the perfect place to start the revolution... ;-) If anyone has seen Scopeware (http://www.scopeware.com), you'll know the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a universal indexing system where *any* file of *any* type in *any* location would be cross-referenced (using metadata as well as content where possible) in one or more filters or streams. Is anybody working on such a fundamental change? If not, is there any interest in starting such a project? I'm not the world's most experienced programmer (mostly Java, some XML/XSLT, a little RealBASIC, etc.), but I'm a good project manager and technical writer, if that would help. [n.b. Please cc my email address in any responses, as I'm not currently subscribed to the full mailing list.] Best regards, Kieren MacMillan. This sounds like the filesystem from BeOS. You might want to check out OpenBeOS. (http://www.openbeos.org/) Last time I checked, their attempt to rewrite the original BeOS code under a free license had made some progress, especially the filesystem part. -- R To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
:Kieren MacMillan wrote: : Hello, all you BSD hackers! : : A major change to the file-folder-desktop metaphor is long overdue, : and it seems to me that FreeBSD -- with Mac OS X as a large and growing : child -- is the perfect place to start the revolution... ;-) : : If anyone has seen Scopeware (http://www.scopeware.com), you'll know : the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a universal indexing system where : *any* file of *any* type in *any* location would be cross-referenced : (using metadata as well as content where possible) in one or more : filters or streams. : : Is anybody working on such a fundamental change? If not, is there any : interest in starting such a project? I'm not the world's most : experienced programmer (mostly Java, some XML/XSLT, a little RealBASIC, : etc.), but I'm a good project manager and technical writer, if that : would help. : : [n.b. Please cc my email address in any responses, as I'm not currently : subscribed to the full mailing list.] : : Best regards, : Kieren MacMillan. : :This sounds like the filesystem from BeOS. :You might want to check out OpenBeOS. (http://www.openbeos.org/) :Last time I checked, their attempt to rewrite the original BeOS :code under a free license had made some progress, especially the :filesystem part. : :-- :R How about an API like this: fd = fstrack(basedir, flags, timestamp); Return a descriptor which tracks changes described in flags that occur in the specified directory basedir or any sub-directory of that directory. Start the reporting stream at timestamp timestamp (allows you to pick up where you left off), or 0 to start reporting at the current time. flags: FSTRACK_CREATE - File creations FSTRACK_DELETE - File deletions FSTRACK_TRUNC - File truncations FSTRACK_UPDATE - File updates FSTRACK_CLOSE - File close() (last close() on file) Returns -1 and ELOSTQUEUE if data related to the specified timestamp has already been discarded by the kernel. n = read(fd, buf, sizeof(buf)) Load as many tracking records as can be made to fit in the specified buffer. If the buffer is too small to hold the next ready tracking record, return -1 and EBUFTOOSMALL, the call can be remade with a larger buffer. May return a consolidation record if the kernel was forced to throw away data due to a queue overflow. A conslidation record is something like One or more files in directory blah changed instead of File XXX in directory blah changed. Something like the above would be an incredibly powerful and capable tool. It could be made to support kqueue() and select() as well. Any sort of indexing or tracking of this magnitude would really have to be a userland process, with support from a kernel mechanism. The biggest problem with a kernel mechanism of this sort is going to be queue overruns (say someone does an 'rm -rf' on a large directory). -Matt Matthew Dillon [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
Kieren MacMillan wrote: If anyone has seen Scopeware (http://www.scopeware.com), you'll know the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a universal indexing system where *any* file of *any* type in *any* location would be cross-referenced (using metadata as well as content where possible) in one or more filters or streams. Is anybody working on such a fundamental change? What about this: http://m-arriaga.net/software/newdocms/ see also http://dot.kde.org/1042011702/ Not BSD-specific, but there's no reason why it should be. - Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
Hello, Rahul: What about this: http://m-arriaga.net/software/newdocms/ see also http://dot.kde.org/1042011702/ Not BSD-specific, but there's no reason why it should be. Thanks for the links -- I'll definitely check it out to see if it suits the purpose, helps, etc. Regards, Kieren. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
re filesystems indexing by content, etc: ... anyone working on a new file system metaphor? ... ... universal indexing system ... *any* file of *any* type in *any* location... Apologies (... by gum, we walked through feet, nay yards of snow...) * The very 1st issue of The Computer Journal in April 1958 has an article relevant to this: http://www3.oup.co.uk/computer_journal/hdb/Volume_01/Issue_01/ Automatic retrieval of recorded information, Fairthorn: http://www3.oup.co.uk/computer_journal/hdb/Volume_01/Issue_01/010036.sgm.abs.html * You might find Semantic File Systems, Gifford, et al., of interest: http://www.psrg.lcs.mit.edu/history/publications/Papers/sfsabs.htm http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/sosp/sosp91.html and anthing else calling itself a semantic filesystem: http://www.objs.com/survey/OFSExt.htm * For one place to start, look up Gerard Salton and related work. If you can find it, see his book: Automatic Text Processing: The Transformation, Analysis, and Retrieval of Information by Computer, Addison-Wesley, 1989. See also his SMART system (System for the Mechanical Analysis and Retrieval of Text). * Follow to journals such as JASIS, work in automatic indexing, digital library, and information science: http://www.asis.org/Publications/JASIS/jasis.html * This is all early work, there's been a lot lately, what with neural nets, etc.. Areas such as this, which have a feel of subjective quality, often seem much harder to get right than one would like. Also, overhead is inevitably high, and seems to always grow higher than feels right. So these systems become external-to-the-os databases. If in the OS, all too often it's like having a very non-deterministic database at the heart of your OS - not good. Maybe yours will be better! ... Perhaps you could extend locate (man locate)? http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/s/Salton:Gerard.html http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs?q=Gerard+Saltonsubmit=Search+Documentscs=1 http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Department/Annual95/Faculty/Salton.html http://www.asis.org/Features/Pioneers/salton.htm Salton G., Automatic Text Analysis, Science, 1970, 168(3929):335-342. - bruce To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:03:15 -0500 Kieren MacMillan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, all you BSD hackers! A major change to the file-folder-desktop metaphor is long overdue, and it seems to me that FreeBSD -- with Mac OS X as a large and growing child -- is the perfect place to start the revolution... ;-) If anyone has seen Scopeware (http://www.scopeware.com), you'll know the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a universal indexing system where *any* file of *any* type in *any* location would be cross-referenced (using metadata as well as content where possible) in one or more filters or streams. Oddly enough, Evolution supports this concept for email. In addition to the usual support for mail folders and such, it has a virtual folder concept that allows you to group and view emails by sort/search criteria such as header contents. It's quite powerful; I use it for reviewing FreeBSD CVS commit messages and such quickly. Do you envision this as an actual new filesystem, or strictly as a user interface 'view' onto the filesystem? A filesystem with extensible attributes might be a good companion to such a system, where you can tag a file with one or more attributes, then sort and view the files by attribute. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters Softweyr LLC [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, Wes Peters wrote: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:03:15 -0500 Kieren MacMillan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, all you BSD hackers! A major change to the file-folder-desktop metaphor is long overdue, and it seems to me that FreeBSD -- with Mac OS X as a large and growing child -- is the perfect place to start the revolution... ;-) If anyone has seen Scopeware (http://www.scopeware.com), you'll know the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a universal indexing system where *any* file of *any* type in *any* location would be cross-referenced (using metadata as well as content where possible) in one or more filters or streams. hmmm system-38/AS-400? Oddly enough, Evolution supports this concept for email. In addition to the usual support for mail folders and such, it has a virtual folder concept that allows you to group and view emails by sort/search criteria such as header contents. It's quite powerful; I use it for reviewing FreeBSD CVS commit messages and such quickly. Do you envision this as an actual new filesystem, or strictly as a user interface 'view' onto the filesystem? A filesystem with extensible attributes might be a good companion to such a system, where you can tag a file with one or more attributes, then sort and view the files by attribute. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters Softweyr LLC [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: anyone working on a new file system metaphor?
On Sat, Jan 11, 2003 at 10:03:48AM -0800, Wes Peters wrote: On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:03:15 -0500 Kieren MacMillan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, all you BSD hackers! A major change to the file-folder-desktop metaphor is long overdue, and it seems to me that FreeBSD -- with Mac OS X as a large and growing child -- is the perfect place to start the revolution... ;-) Do you envision this as an actual new filesystem, or strictly as a user interface 'view' onto the filesystem? A filesystem with extensible attributes might be a good companion to such a system, where you can tag a file with one or more attributes, then sort and view the files by attribute. This is, essentially, BFS from BeOS. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24648.html If the technology makes a significant reemergence I would expect it come in the reverse direction -- from Apple, since they now employ Dominic Giampaulo. Brandon D. Valentine -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.geekpunk.net Everyone's been sold American. Don't let me catch you laughing when the jukebox cries...Everything's been sold American. No place to go and brother, no place to stay. -- Kinky Friedman, Sold American To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
