User: Roger Houston

Can it play linuxsuite??

On: Guitarists, your Days are Numbered

Or Stairway?

Ummm... grep -r "search string" Maildir ?

On: E-mail As the New Database

The Unix filesystem is a versatile and sufficient database for personal mail and many other things. If you need more than that then you really should re examine you resource and protocol usage.

The revolutionary potential

On: Open Source Methods Useful Way Beyond Software

One of the main barriers to inovation
in many industries is the proprietary nature
of techinical/engineering information, which
is locked up in the corporate property system.
If such information were to be liberated and
become the property of its developers they would
no doubt imitate the OSFS movement. Once the
freedom to use and modify engineering design is
established, a revolution in innovation would
occur. Imagine "open sourcing" the engineering
data for automobiles, and all manufactured goods!

Re:Standard...

On: Naturally Occurring Standards

Ultimately a "real" standard is the
result of a broad opinion that the standard
is technically efficient both wrt. machine
and human interaction. The standard gains
weight if that opinion is repeatedly validated
over time.

Examples of such standards include

i) The C programming language

ii) The tempered scale in music

iii) The thread geometry for fasteners

iv) Currency systems

Standards are never permanent and
all will eventually become the victims of
technical obsolesence.