[Discuss] [DIYbio] Fwd: The institutionalization of OSHW

[Tim Schmidt]

We're not packaging hardware.  We're packaging proto-hardware.  Which
comes in the form of...    Software.

So why don't software packages work again?

This is why a built-in metadata format like ThingDoc works so well.
You package up the software and don't have to teach the package
manager bupkis about what machine you, personally, use to make screw
threads.  The package manager shouldn't be concerned with that.  But
some outside utility might be.  Some outside utility -- or utilities
-- we can write at our leisure to do whatever fancy things with the
built-in metadata we want.

Attempting to solve this problem by engineering it in it's entirety,
in place, is unlikely to yield fruitful results (as I think you're
familiar from skdb).

--tim