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Comment by angersock | Hacker News Reader

So, you're not building a filesystem (because that's hard, and requires concrete engineering skills), but instead a glorified file metadata search?

So, MongoDB with a file URL? (Hint: that's you could implement the MVP of this, and if you use a URL you can even reference user files they don't store locally)

And file permissions are dead? Because nobody has kids that use the same desktop they do?

This is (from a technical standpoint) the silliest goddamn thing I've ever heard.

From a product standpoint, you could probably pitch and get a few M. Why the fuck not.

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What I'm buoding is most definitely not a "filesystem". Those use filenames and folders and crap like that. My system does away with that.

What you said about a glorified metadata search is right on.

Some people share devices, but most people we share with use other devices.

I'm glad you think its silly because all great things have haters (bitcoin, justin bieber, etc.)

"I'm glad you think its silly because all great things have haters"

Stupid things have haters too. Some people "hating" your idea doesn't make it good. Doesn't make it bad either.

I don't know what windows does these days, but OSX has had tags and metadata for "files" for a while. It's even easy to add the info, and search for it. I never bother though because, for me, it doesn't solve any problems or add any value.

I wouldn't say that having haters is a good measure of "greatness", though.

Baloo, https://community.kde.org/Baloo is the current incarnation of the Linux semantic desktop, http://www.semanticdesktop.org/

"It's responsible for handling user metadata such as tags, rating and comments. It also handles indexing and searching for files, emails, contacts, and so on"

Cross-device research for semantic desktop: http://www.dime-project.eu/en/home/dime/project/solution/con...

So, don't be so dismissive of "crap like that". There are a lot of legacy ideas that are with us not from sheer inertia, but because they work.

Many modern filesystems are littered with the reeking remains of attempts at supporting metadata (for example, NTFS), most of which nobody cares about and which just add implementation complexity.

If you want to pitch a more useful and more abstract version of what you're describing ("how can we present searching and accessing a metadata forest backed by traditional hierarchical file stores") then by all means I'll be friendlier but right now you're coming across as a crank ignorant of the history of the ideas you're decrying.

I'm not building a filesystem. I'm building a non-filesystem. Not metadata jammed into a filesystem. A whole new system that is used by the end user in lieu of the filesystem.

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -- Carl Sagan

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