pcplantdb

["John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

> --- Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org> wrote:
>> yes, I checked out the PFAF database- and it is very impressive.  I
>> would want to create something that was freely accessible to anyone,
>> however.

Anyone with web access can search the PFAF database (bearing in mind that
maybe 10% of the world's population has internet access anyhow)...I can get
useful info from PFAF with a low bandwidth connection and a text browser. 
Technology requirements for the Plumb product (Thinkmap) and similar are
considerably higher.

If I understand your project, you will be raising funds to pay a commercial
development company to develop a product based on their own proprietary
platform.

If you will actually own all of the end product of that development, you could
indeed make it freely available to those with adequate techological means,
assuming you have legal rights to distribute their runtime engine or
equivalent for free.

Otherwise not - and any future enhancements, etc. will I assume depend on
raising more money for that work to be done by the commercial developer using
their proprietary platform.

If the company goes out of business or gets bought up (or drops the product),
all bets are off as to the future of such an "investment."

On the other hand, there are some open source projects underway that are
similar to Thinkmap.  TouchGraph seems to have the most obvious presence -
here is the development site:

http://touchgraph.sourceforge.net/

...and an article about it, with some good explanations of some of the ideas
behind this sort of interface, how it works and what it can and can't do:

http://nooface.net/articles/02/02/04/1830239.shtml

...and site using it to display a GBI (graph based interface) of related
projects and products, sites using it, and sites using similar GBIs.

http://www.touchgraph.com/browser/LinkBrowser.html

As for the visual aspects, I took a look at the online visual thesaurus.  Nice
eye candy.  I don't find their interface particularly intuitive though - or
really all that effective compared to text.  The dynamic word lists and
call-outs are nice (if the darn thing would stand still...which TouchGraph
does after a bit), but could be done functionally well enough without so much
graphics overhead.

In a more immediately relevant vein, someone(s) somewhere, decided what
default visual "weights" and relationships to give various synonyms, etc. for
a chosen word - which is quite different than looking them up in a text-based
format, where each individual implicitly and/or explicitly determines their
preferences and priorities.  IMO this is a potential case of "too much
information."  There is no absolute basis for indicating that this synonym is
"more important" than that one - context is everything (a fundamental design
principle).

So for example if guild DB users can't adjust guild element "weights" to suit
their contexts, the DB usefulness is limited (skewed) by the default choices
made, which may be inappropriate across diverse bioregions, climate zones,
microclimates and so on.  If users can adjust these, the complexity required
multiplies yet again (and the "who's in charge of that anyhow?" question
arises yet again... ;-).

As to business realities,

>> In terms of incorporating the complexity of information- I have
>> spoken with the Business Development Manager of this particular 
>> application,
>> and have described Permaculture and guilds to him, and he thinks it would
>> work beautifully.

This is rather like asking the waiter if the food at his restaurant is good
when he comes to take your order.

The job of a business development manager is to develop business for his
company.  You are apparently willing to generate some business for him, so he
is unlikely to say it won't work.  His job is to say it will work beautifully.
 After that it's the developers' problem...and in most cases they don't get
asked.  They get told, after the deal is closed.  "Never let developers talk
to clients!!" is a cardinal rule of tech biz.

>> Right now I am basically trying to gauge interest, and find potential
>> collaborators.  I think the grant proposal would carry much more
>> weight if there was wide support from the Permaculture community.

I'd rather see whatever money could be generated for something like this
circulate within the Permaculture community and fund an open-source
community-developed database/resource, including functional support for those
with limited technological means.  Perhaps TouchGraph is mature enough to make
a start with (and contribute to further TouchGraph development as a reciprocal
benefit.  That seems more permaculturish to me than paying for a sealed
package.

We teach that in permaculture, 'appropriate technology' is 'technology we can
appropriate for ourselves' - which Thinkmap is not.

Thanks for putting this out - perhaps it will revive the pcplantdb list a bit.

cheers,
John S.


John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net