Tim Bray (who is looking for something new to do) has a wishlist for what the next-generation search software should be as part of his Search Series. He calls it BRF and elaborates:
– is Open-Source
– is Web-Centric
– Interfaces to Everything
– is Part of Apache
– is Internationalized
– Comes with a Bunch of Document Readers
– Comes with a Robot
– Comes with a Filesystem Walker
– is Self-Managing
– Keeps Running
– is XML-Capable
– is Fast
– is Ready for PHP, JSP, and Friends
– Has Programmmable Ranking
– Does Booleans, Phrases, And So On
Tim would like to spend the next year building the BRF out…sounds like something good to be a part of. His ideas could be combined with Steve Gillmor’s Information Router built around RSS, and we could have the base for a new Information Platform.
