From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 22 16:52:55 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0FAE51065672 for ; Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:52:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [65.122.17.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFD6B8FC13 for ; Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:52:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwatson@FreeBSD.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [65.122.17.41]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 857C646B32; Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:52:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:52:54 +0000 (GMT) From: Robert Watson X-X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Gabriele Modena In-Reply-To: <1fe1d5d60903210422g70efef15hdd685695cdf8df3c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: References: <1fe1d5d60903210422g70efef15hdd685695cdf8df3c@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GSoC: Semantic File System X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:52:55 -0000 On Sat, 21 Mar 2009, Gabriele Modena wrote: > I am an AI master student at the university of Amsterdam. > > On of my current research interests lays in the area of information > retrieval and I would like to do a project within my University research > group starting next june. > > I am actually studying background literature about semantic filesystem and > information retrieval over local files. > > Being also quite interested in kernel development, I would like to propose a > proof of concept that implements such techniques. My goal, though, would not > be just a reimplementation of existing code, but possibly some more > extensive work that combines techniques already used in other domains of II. > > Could this be an interesting Summer of Code proposal for the FreeBSD > Foundation? > > I plan to write down some notes/ideas (and details) I have on a wiki > starting from next week. Hi Gabriele-- We are certainly not uninterested in projects along these lines, but I think the trick will be creating a convincing proposal that argues that (a) you can do the work in a summer, (b) there's a compelling usage case for including the results in FreeBSD, and (c) find a mentor who can supervise you in this project. What sort of semantic file system do you have in mind? How would you feel about a middle-ground project along the lines of Mac OS X Spotlight or similar efficient userspace indexing of a file system based on feedback from the file system about what has changed, or something BeOS-like, in which indexing takes place for extended attributes rather than for contents? Robert N M Watson Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge