Community/6x10000s Problem

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Revision as of 22:51, 23 January 2010 by Sebastien Bailard (talk | contribs) (Library/5x10000s Problem)
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Library/6x10000s Problem

The Library 6 * ten thousands problem:

How do we keep track of

10,000 files
for 10,000 projects by
10,000 users
on
10,000 pages
in
10,000 languages
for
10,000 years.

Note: these numbers are approximate, but will guide our thinking on this problem until we have a solution. I think there may be 10,000 ways. And only a few good ones. And probably, 200-400 years, minimum.

We don't want to spend 10,000 hours figuring this out, so it would be best to enlist some experts. We also don't want to keep parts on 10,000 damn websites. 2-3 websites is better than 10,000 websites, and 1 website twice or thrice as good, because it means 10,000 less outgoing links to mirrored content to check.


Seriously?

Yes. 200-400+ years for things like scans of sculpture from the 1600s.

10,000 users, minimum.

At least a few dozen languages.

Definitely 1000 [RBS/Gears gears], etc.

Certainly a few dozen repstraps.

Hopefully a few dozen RepRaps.

Only one Policy , and that needs editing before we show it to the EFF and Archive.org for review, let alone a museum curator or paper library archivist!


This is impossible!

No it's not. We can do it with clever scripting, lots of server space, and an "agile" website written with good software architecture and social networking principals in mind.


Are you crazy?

Nope. We're patient. And unstoppable. Not that we don't mind volunteer help from software architects, library archivists, and users who want to upload to RepRap.org.

Notes, Theory

We are still defining the problem. "Projects, Parts, Arts, and Docs" is pithy, but I don't know what it means.

This is an information science problem, and a social networking problem.