Originally shared by Gary Hodgson
I’ve been working on an idea over the last few weeks which I would like to share with the community. It’s a proposal for a way to share designs, projects and “things” within the maker community. To try and present the idea I have created an information website: http://thingtracker.net
To be clear, this is really just a starting point to promote discussion, with the hope that the whole community can provide input, and together we can produce the start of a decentralised Network of Things.
The idea percolated from the discussions following my creating githubiverse [1], and also from the forum thread of +Richard Horne about a RepRap Object Repository [2]. And whilst it certainly isn’t an original idea, I think the time is ripe for something to develop in this area.
I can envision a future where people can develop apps and tools that hook into the Network of Things and offer all kinds of services: search engines; boutique object repositories; personalised lists; and so on. All open and decentralised. Pretty idealistic perhaps, but still pragmatic enough to become reality.
There is a whole host of use cases and ideas surrounding the proposal, as well as many potential issues, all of which I hope we can discuss further, leading to something that really benefits the community. So, if you can find the time, please have a glance over the website and share your opinions.
[1] http://garyhodgson.com/reprap/2012/09/githubiverse-a-github-pages-template-for-3d-printing-projects/#comment-6578
[2] http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,160251,161357#msg-161357