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On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 23:04 +0100, Tom Brough wrote:I don't > know of any free software project that deals with farm stock / breading > control software. Weird synchronicity! I was mentioning open source possibilities to someone just recently who is a "play organic beef and dairy farmer" (his own words) and raised the issue about whether an open source program suite for livestock tracking, integrated with finance control and input/output stuff (feed, rotations etc.) would be a useful project for some hobbyist tekky inclined smallholders/farmers to develop. This was in the context of "green" smallholdings/organic farms (a number have converted hereabouts over the years - West Oxfordshire, up into the Cotswolds, a very rural area with one of the lowest population densities in the country despite its proximity to the Thames Valley). If my back allows me to (I'm having a serious problem with being able to sit at a desk and computer for any length of time at all) I've been exploring the possibility of setting up an open source GIS system leveraging Linux and the availability of web mapping, scanned pre 1955 ordnance maps out of copyright, and data input of trees and new plantings and suchlike, with a local environmenal "umbrella" project. Such a spatial system would also lend itself to integration into a wider framework of open/free environmental and agricultural management, to do some "serendipitous connecting" of thoughts around this area. Bear in mind that "subsidy farming" has changed its emphasis from outright gross production of foodstuffs by hook or by crook - well, to some extent - to "environmental stewardship", which will lend itself well to spatial tracking of environmental factors, like meadow conservation of biodiversity, woodland and its biodiversity etc. where there is an obvious use for mapping and its database backends. But due to a nasty cycling accident 6 weeks ago - dislocated my left hip very nastily, tearing up muscles and ligaments badly, falling down a slope (most people would break a leg bone doing this and getting the leg tangled in the frame, but mine are apparently too thick and strong...) I have only just managed to bend enough to sit at a chair (vertical on crutches or largely horizontal for over a month with little angle in between!). Bashing my shoulder and back badly - already seriously injured in a building site accident in my teens (should have been in a wheelchair for the last 30+ years so but for the Grace etc...) I've been grounded somewhat, and been unable to spend much time sitting. But I digress, I must stop going off on tangents, touchtyping so fast enables to to happen sooo easily... Back to the point. Given that unix philosophy is a number of programs doing what they do best and with a single or narrow focus, could we have a useful interaction here for overall land and agricultural livestock and arable management, which could be approached componentially but also with an eye to coordinative integration? Could this be used to leverage interest, an free/open system combining environmental stewardship/biodiversity and spatial data with stock and crop management financial and tracking control? I wonder if a farm management system, coupled with spatial input for mapping of "Environmental Stewardship" is something that people living in rural areas should consider working up? There must be a number of people involved in agricultural pursuits, either as a full time occupation or as a "lifestyle changers", "downsizers" or "playfarmers" who could have the sort of amateur or ex-tekky skills from previous occupations to take this on, or be interested in developing those? Malcolm -- ------------------------------------------------------------- "Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth." Oystein Dahle, former vice president, Exxon Norway and North Sea. -------------------------------------------------------------- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html