FRDCSA FAQ


What sort of solutions are we looking to create, for what sort of problems?
Who all's involved?
What sort of resources do we have to work with?
What do we need to tackle short term?
What's the next step.
How is this project different than Sourceforge?
How is this project different than CPAN?

Q

What sort of solutions are we looking to create, for what sort of problems?

A

There are a few central aims of our project. Since we hold the belief that software must be reused, and that key to this reuse is a central package repository, we aim to solve the problems necessary to:

  1. Create a Comprehensive Software Ontology (CSO).
  2. Compile as many packages for software whose licenses permit and as we have the resources to, using automatic packaging tools we have written that learn from our experiences in packaging novel types of applications.
  3. Find or create software which helps the user to locate the right tools for a particular job. A simple example

How do we limit which types of problems we aim to solve? Well, eventually we would like the computer to define an ontology of problems, and be able to do planning. Until we have such software, however, we are simply using our intuitition. Our main focus currently is recruiting the core group of programmers and packagers, since we feel that our purpose is well-defined but impractical without a software development team focused on achieving the above 3 goals. These goals simplify somewhat the actual nature of the problems, which we cannot yet summarise, so you might already be thinking about some of the limitations of the above 3 goals. Check out our internal codebases to get a better picture of the state of our approach.


Q

Who all's involved?

A

The project was initiated by a socially disabled college student in his first year of college, and has been in progress for 5 years, developing the theory and the central goals of the project. It is based on results in mathematical logic, recursion theory and proof theory.

Having defined the goals adequately, a core group of individuals with a largely altruistic interest was recruited. However this took longer than expected due to said social disability.

The core team now consists of a group of 4 highly creative individuals. However, luckily, there are about 30 people in the area who have expressed serious interest in participation when the group has become more established. Therefore, we are working on recruiting primary members who are of exceptional value to the group right now.

There are about 100 people in the area who have expressed an interest in certain aspects of the project which are of mutual interest.

Lastly, once we are organized we will see what kind of interest exists in the online community.


Q

What sort of resources do we have to work with?

A

We have two primary types of resources, physical and mental. Mentally, our primary resource is the theoretical framework and the shared goals of our group, which will see us through the initial physical adversity during the difficult recruiting phase.

As far as resources go, we have not raised money yet, prefering instead to fund the project from small business. We have a software product we will sell shortly to raise more money, and we are pursuing fundraising opportunities for the project concurrently.

We have about 15 computers, 10 of which are XP 1800/512 DDR/120 GB.


Q

What do we need to tackle short term?

A

Good question. We need people who know what to tackle short term. We have lots of things. Mainly we have large lists of relevant tasks. Without a doubt our most important objective is recruitment of skilled members for software development and project management. On the technical side, we are mainly interested in getting our software development servers up to speed. From the nontechnical side, we are interested in creating a face for our organization.


Q

What's the next step.

A

Our next step is really the recruitment of additional members who can sort out the challenges and find answers to these questions. What we offer is a solution to certain problems and the essential service of packaging software for a central repository in open systems, since a brief look around illustrates this inadequacy. Lastly we are interested in the fruits of such a system which we feel will, as a result of the software glue we write, and the knowledge inherent in the software we package, will provide us with better means to pursue our goals and to contribute to free operating systems and smart computing platforms that will help society by literally solving its problems.


Q

How is this project different than Sourceforge?.

A

Good question. We make extensive use of the resources that Sourceforge provides. Sourceforge is a great repository of online software, but it does not do certain things that we need. First, it does not actively locate software by spidering the web, rather, the authors of software must register their product. So, by spidering the web and their resources, we can actually create a comprehensive software ontology that includes software that is not found on Sourceforge. Secondly, it does not always provide packages for their software.


Q

How is this project different than CPAN?.

A

CPAN is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. While many of interal codebases happen to be written in Perl, the majority of external codebases are not. Our system is also different from the main Debian archive in that our applications have much lower quality standards, since we don't have the talent or man power of Debian. However, we do fill a role in that we make rough packages for end users, in the hopes that we can help them to solve their problems. In this way, users are more likely to find what they are looking for and not to redouble efforts, as this is wasteful to the world.

Andrew J. Dougherty
Last modified: Wed Feb 16 14:32:00 EST 2005