c2vi / mize

A strongly typed "filesystem" for the age of connectivity, or a modern plan9.

MiZe

• An implementation of how I think data should be handled.
• Slogan: Elevate the unix file Philosophy into the age of connectivity.

Why I'm doing this.

• What annoyes me about Software these days is things are done in so many different ways.

  • e.g: Different Cloud Apps for syncing data (Google-Cloud, Onedrive, Dropbox)
  • e.g: Every App stores the Data it deals with in it's own way (the way that the developer thought is best for this particular app)

• Back when Unix came out EVERYTHING was stored in one place: the file system of the computer.

  • (just as simple bytestreams/files, organized by a folder-structure)
  • and NO program stored and synced any data around in unpredictable ways.

• This Philosophy is still used in every Unix/Linux machine, on a local level, but completely abstracted away (especially on mobile phones) from the user (by every App).

• I would say: The Unix File system just hasn't evolved into the age of connectivity. It is still completely the same. And I think it shouldn't be.

• miZe aims to bring that idea of storing all data

  • in one place
  • in one predictable and simple way
  • and programms only taking data from there and not storing it everywhere in messy ways

• back ... into the age of connectivity.

• That's why the slogan is going to be: Elevate the unix file Philosophy into the age of connectivity.

How I'm going to do this.

• Is not yet completely clear, but what I know so far:
  • Using what I call "Items" instead of Files
    • With "Items" being a key-value store of strings/bytestreams
    • Those "Items" have types, that give meaning to the key-value pairs.
  • A Server Written in Rust that stores those "Items".
  • A way to mount "Items"(or parts of them) into a regular filesystem.
  • Webcomponents to show/render the contents of Items in a Browser (or electron style apps).
  • Server middleware to connect external apis (emails, youtube, google account) to this ecosystem.
  • The Server is one binary without any external requirements (that should run on any POSIX system)
    • to make it simpler to deploy
    • I've previously experimented with using MongoDB to store items, but then there has to be a MongoDB instance running that the server can connect to. And the connection can fail ... and lots of other things can go wrong.
    • I want a binary that you just start and it's a working server.