An olpcfs experience report

[Joshua N Pritikin]

My other question about OLPCFS is how the versioning interacts with
activities which work with projects composed of discrete elements (such as
TamTam). I'm not sure whether there is a problem here. I'm just thinking
out loud.

TamTam deals with sounds which are stored as independent self-contained
files. It also deals with compositions of sounds (i.e. music). When I save
my TamTam project, presumbably, it writes out the elements into
individuals files and then saves the project file which ties everything
together. All these files might get slightly different timestamps.
However, all the components are saved earlier than the project file.

Suppose I want to reuse a sound "Yodel" in a comic book. To facilitate
this kind of reuse, activities should try to save content as granularly as
possible. A granular file format will also facilitate differential
compression.

Suppose I refine sound yodel in TamTam and then go back to my comic book.
It might be useful if there was a way to select the newest version of
yodel or select a particular version from among my favorites from within
the activity. OLPCFS would make that kind of UI magic possible.
Version-aware activities with an Import menu may also need a rollover on
the imported object to change the embedded version.