Hello, Michael:
I am Jim DeLaHunt. I recently discovered Perkeep. A lot of Perkeep's
fundamentals resonate with me, as they do with you. Like you, I would
like some scope extensions to address my archiving requirements. But the
scope extensions I have my eye on may differ slightly from yours.
On 2023-01-19 17:20, michaeljafarr wrote:
I have some questions for the Perkeep community to gauge interest in a
recalibration of Perkeep's scope.
Perkeep is the most complete system that understands CAS and file
indexing. Its schema/camliTypes and related signing systems are
simple yet allow great extensibility. The CLI, importers, mobile/web
apps, encryption and redundant syncing systems are all non-trivial in
their own right and have been implemented with the future in mind.
I've looked across a range of other systems (IPFS, Syncthing, Seafile,
Gluster', Upspin', Filestash etc.), and Perkeep is by far the best
match for what I am looking for.
Some file/data management scenarios are not served well by solutions
anywhere. I have some high-level suggestions below, but I'd like to
hear your general views on whether there is a need for more features
in the personal data management space that Perkeep inhabits. Do
people in the Perkeep community see any opportunities to extend
Perkeeps core purpose or scope in general?
There are lots of great things in perkeep, and there are many
fundamental things that should never change:
- the beliefs described on perkeep.org
- content addressed storage
- objects, not files + claims and schema system etc
- the indexing system - how it is managed, extended etc.
- the ecosystem, including importers and the UIs
- focus on open formats and protocols
My thoughts on a new capability for Perkeep include the following two
things, with hopefully minimal impact on existing components. These
two things wouldn't be trivial, but they could increase the reach of
this platform.
1. keeping some form of metadata on all data everywhere, where the
data itself isn't stored in blob storage. Allow users to see this
data in a familiar file hierarchy and control smart-ish import
rules for these files via a Perkeep management UI. If nothing
else, this one thing would lower the threshold for those wishing
to start Perkeep.
2. include additional classifying, tagging and handling data rules
based on contextual information about where the 'file' came from.
My biggest requirement which seems unmet by Perkeep is to archive files
and directory trees as files and directory trees, rather than dissolving
them into the blob store. Part of what I want to preserve is rich file
system metadata from past file systems, most notably resources forks of
past MacOS HFS+ filesystems, and extended attributes of present APFS
filesystems. I also want to be able to archive a software source code
directory tree with its filenames, structural relationships, and
timestamps intact.
A way to do this is to track metadata for files and directory trees,
without dissolving the directory trees themselves.
I have year-based directories of bits going back 35+ years. I have
directory trees of photographs. I want to index, manage, and explore
that content, but I do not want to do anything to modify those files
themselves.
However, I am very new to Perkeep. I don't yet have a clear idea how
much of this Perkeep does in fact do, and what represents new scope.
Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
--
. --Jim DeLaHunt,[email protected] http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
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