I know about links, and there are one or 2 other solutions I've looked at 2.
But that's not really what I'm getting at.
Links are pretty cumbersome, get broken, etc. They sort of work in the avoiding the duplication issue I mentioned. They don't work in the sense that what the (non-techy) user wants to do with data is an afterthought - ie the order of priority is computer, then user.
What I'm talking about is that the meta-data describing personal files should be where the user adds their value to - they should be able to describe what the data means to them and that should only need to be done once. The data itself should be handled by the OS; where it is etc is not really a big concern for the user themselves.
But that's not really what I'm getting at.
Links are pretty cumbersome, get broken, etc. They sort of work in the avoiding the duplication issue I mentioned. They don't work in the sense that what the (non-techy) user wants to do with data is an afterthought - ie the order of priority is computer, then user.
What I'm talking about is that the meta-data describing personal files should be where the user adds their value to - they should be able to describe what the data means to them and that should only need to be done once. The data itself should be handled by the OS; where it is etc is not really a big concern for the user themselves.