pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

hi again folks,

Right on, I'm pleased with all these correspondences ;)

A few super-quick notes:

--"I do have a strong philosophical objection to participating in any
project creating intellectual property where the product is not free
as in open source (google for "reasonable use"). Initially my
objections, and my reluctance to participate, where around the choice
of Thinkmap as a core part of the project. Although that has changed
there is still the item of licensing images from PFAF. I am willing
to buy the images from PFAF but I am not OK with encumbering the
project with non-free IP. For that matter, I think it would be a nice
token to buy the PFAF dataset (even though it is free already) to
compensate them for their efforts."

We are no longer planning to use Thinkmap - if we use a GBI for the 
front-end, it would be TouchGraph which is open-source (didn't it say so 
in the proposal?  If not, I must have sent the wrong draft...)  Anyways, 
I certainly agree with this concern, and in terms of practicing what we 
preach, we should certainly use what is already available, in this case 
TouchGraph.  And licensing from PFAF would be a wonderful idea, and way 
to compensate for their efforts - plus, I like the idea of this project 
serving to help other similar and already-existing initiatives.  I did 
include this in the budget, so it would be a wonderful thing if funding 
came in and we could license from PFAF.


--"I'm partial to cvs (Concurrent Versions System <http://cvshome.org>)
and am willing to manage it at galatea.org or wherever."

Ibiblio said they would offer free hosting and web services, plus 
matching funds for these costs.  Is this something different from what we 
would get from CVS/galatea.org?  


--"I personally can't make much sense, even less any efficient use, of 
most wikis I've seen so far"

So let's take this opportunity to change that!  The basic concept of 
wikis - that they may be modified by users dynamically - is super 
powerful and could be used effectively (we are clearly in the early 
learning stages...).  But we will need users to be able to input 
information in an effective and sensible way for the database to grow and 
be useful, correct?


The fellow from the Threshold Foundation who will be evaluating our 
project is actually interested in Permaculture *and* has software 
experience- so he's already warmed up to our project.  

Once again, are the roles I defined in the project proposal correct, or 
Chad- are you now volunteering to be responsible for back-end?  (Rich, 
where are you?)  And if you/others need a higher salary than that 
proposed, do we want to consider other funding sources?

I am super confident we can make this happen (although, of course, we are 
still deciphering what "this" means...)

peace
*Stephanie


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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Re: So on and so forth (John Schinnerer)
   2. Re: Re: Re: Re: So... (Robyn Williamson) (John Schinnerer)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 22:45:48 -0800 (PST)
From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] Re: So on and so forth
To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID:
        <1205.172.198.171.238.1078382748.squirrel@www.eco-living.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Aloha,

Thanks for the beta on

> Ken Fern did most/all of the data collection in the PFAF dataset
..
> Yup.  There is some level of flexibility regarding where the front end
> meets the back as well.  One can describe the API as being how the
> front end interfaces directly with the database and place the majority
> of the responsibility in the front end.  Alternately one can place
> some code between the front end and the database and describe the API
> as the interface of the front end with this glue layer.  This allows
> some of the complex and common operations to be shared among front
> ends and enforces specific interactions with the database.  I favor
> the later

Likewise - that's why I described it the way I did.  DB itself and robust 
API
as 'back end'.

> ...because I'm paranoid about data-munging

I wouldn't say I'm paranoid but I definitely agree...bad practice, gets 
ugly
and/or messy sooner or later.  I've seen waaaayyyy too much crappy design 
-
let's not do it here.

> and I think an
> appropriate abstraction of the back end mechanics will make writing
> front ends flexible, powerful, and easy.

Agreed, definitely.

> I'm partial to cvs (Concurrent Versions System <http://cvshome.org>)
> and am willing to manage it at galatea.org or wherever.

Fine by me.

> I personally am not satisfied with any
> wiki I've seen so far.

I personally can't make much sense, even less any efficient use, of most 
wikis
I've seen so far, alas including the PC wiki (which is also broken
display-wise, in different ways, on most browsers I've looked at it with 
-
GIGO...).

Will be a while before I am able to look at the grant proposal but I will 
when
I can...

I too want this to be a "free (as in freedom)" software project, 
completely
licensable under the GPL (GNU Public License) or something functionally
equivalent.  I'm not sure what the details are involving PFAF that you 
refer
to, Chad...

How about soliciting some more community involvement as regards
getting/using/acquiring plant data and images and so on?  This is a 
pretty
small conversation so far - any lurkers out there with something to say?  
Is
that a contradiction in terms...lurkers with something to say...? ;-)




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


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 23:02:39 -0800 (PST)
From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] Re: Re: Re: So... (Robyn Williamson)
To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID:
        <1209.172.198.171.238.1078383759.squirrel@www.eco-living.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Aloha,

> I reckon you can't beat Linnaeus' original system.  When I know the
> FAMILY to which a genus/species belongs it can speak volumes to me even
> if I have never come across it before.

I agree that the family, genus, species stuff needs to be in the DB.  I,
however, want to search by functions, inputs, outputs, sizes, yeilds,
lifespans, climates, etc. etc. - plain language stuff that comes directly 
from
my design needs and gets me some options for plants that will suit my 
needs. 
I know jack about latin names and so they don't tell me anything (and I 
don't
want to have to learn them for the DB to be useful for me).

> Common names are a worry, the same plant can have 10 different ones, or
> 2 different plants could have the same one.  I just did a job today
> where "Curry Plant" (a grey low-growing shrub - Helichrysum sp.) was
> specified with no botanical name.  They delivered "Curry Plant" (a tall
> green tree -Murraya sp.) so we couldn't use them.

I think one possible strength of a PC plant DB would be to (finally?) 
start to
clear up some of this sort of common name confusion by cross-referencing 
it
with other pieces of information that will enable users to find the 
"right"
plant with a given common name.  Create a rich enough context for the 
common
name so that it will be more uniquely identifiable.

For example in Hawai'i there is a tree everyone calls "ironwood" - and a 
PFAF
search on ironwood turns up several hits, for plants of very different 
types,
none of which are the "ironwood" in Hawai'i.  That's because PFAF doesn't 
at
present (AFAIK) have a way to search in that sort of context, e.g. for 
"the
latin name for the plant called 'ironwood' in Hawai'i" - but I am 
assuming
that sort of ability - both input and output - would at some point anyhow 
be
part of a PC plant DB.

> Knowing the height and width at maturity would also be important for
> guild selection purposes.
>
> Is this the sort of thing you mean?

Yeah, definitely.



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


------------------------------

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End of pcplantdb Digest, Vol 10, Issue 4
****************************************




+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(h) 505.758.2806
(c) 415.871.5683


____________________________________________________________________