Building your own hardware: do not underestimate the Raspberry Pi, which is exactly that and has done an extremely good job at the question of "how do we make a desktop for developers who are also small children?" (Answer: minecraft/python integration)
APIs: people seem to have trouble distinguishing between the system they're building and the API. This seems to be particularly bad in GNOME land, which has gone for the Windows approach of tight integration and unpopular look-and-feel overhauls. As you say, all the search programs are dead .. except good old 'find' and 'locate'.
I note that X11 has lasted so long due to API persistance, and having features which are harder to duplicate than people think (window manager protocol, network transparency). Even now Wayland to me is a "future" thing.
So, to get a Linux "search" platform, first define the API carefully, then build a rubbish client and server or two. Use this strawman to aggravate someone into building a more popular version *on the same API*.
Re: Interesting take, but it would not *stay* an advantage...
APIs: people seem to have trouble distinguishing between the system they're building and the API. This seems to be particularly bad in GNOME land, which has gone for the Windows approach of tight integration and unpopular look-and-feel overhauls. As you say, all the search programs are dead .. except good old 'find' and 'locate'.
I note that X11 has lasted so long due to API persistance, and having features which are harder to duplicate than people think (window manager protocol, network transparency). Even now Wayland to me is a "future" thing.
So, to get a Linux "search" platform, first define the API carefully, then build a rubbish client and server or two. Use this strawman to aggravate someone into building a more popular version *on the same API*.