What is the FRDCSA?

"FRDCSA" stands for "Formalized Research Database: Cluster, Study and Apply".

Cluster: The FRDCSA is a large collection of software (codebases) that is actively maintained and expanded using a variety of methods (see RADAR Internal Codebase ).

Study: Depending on licensing, packages or installers are semi-automatically created for each codebase. (see Packager Internal Codebase )

Apply: Packaged systems are then used to solve existing problems. (see Architect Internal Codebase )

The archive can be accessed either manually, or preferably, if you have "apt", by adding the following line to the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://frdcsa.onshore.net/debian/ unstable/

Milestones

  • Jan 1, 2005: We aim to have 5000 packages created by the year 2005. Check our progress on the packages page. (Note that the number of packages will be nonlinear WRT time, since we are automating the packaging process.)

    Update: As of Tue Feb 15 07:12:28 EST 2005, I have 109 packages made. While this is no where near what I expected, considering the developments in late 2004 it is pretty good. The package quality, however, is not very good. Now that I am working again, I am having difficulty getting time to work on this. If you are interested in sponsoring my work at all please contact me at 

    andrewd@onshore.com

  • March 1, 2005: We aim to have 5000 packages which satisfy every requirement as put forth in the Debian Policy.

FRDCSA Technical Motivation

While the technical reference is still being written, please read the following two sources: Wikipedia article on Algorithmic Information Theory , and Chaitin's paper. It is very important that one understand this paper. If one understands the major concepts in this paper, then there are only a few more concepts required to completely understand why we need to package software.

Specifically, note the section which states: "The approach of this paper, in contrast, is to measure the power of a set of axioms, to measure the information that it contains. We shall see that there are circumstances in which one only gets out of a set of axioms what one puts in, and in which it is possible to reason in the following manner. If a set of theorems constitutes t bits of information, and a set of axioms contains less than t bits of information, then it is impossible to deduce these theorems from these axioms."

Simply replace "theorems" with "problems", "axioms" with "programs", and "deduce" with "solve" to understand the general necessity of having more software.

A.K.A.: If a set of problems constitutes t bits of information, and a set of programs contains less than t bits of information, then it is impossible to solve these problems from these programs."

So, increasing the information that our set of programs contains is necessary to solve increasingly complex problems. The FRDCSA thesis held by members of the FRDCSA says given the extent of free software, packaging this software is a necessary step of any practical attempt by our group to increase our solution space. It is not sufficient, therefore we are writing numerous systems to help us glue the functionality of the software together where necessary.

Although it represents almost 5 years of research, the FRDCSA is still in its beginning phases. Check back frequently for additional functionality. Help is sincerely needed in getting all these packages made. Packages are necessary in order to quickly and conveniently access the capabilities of software systems. If you would like to help make packages or join our group, please send mail to andrewd@onshore.com.

Further Reading

The following reading has been very useful in giving us an understanding of how to go about solving problems.

Andrew J. Dougherty
Last modified: Wed Jun 7 10:27:17 CDT 2006