• SKDB is an open-source “apt-get for hardware” that uses human-readable YAML metadata to describe parts, dependencies, and fabrication instructions, with a live web demo at http://heybryan.org:8081/package/ that keeps OpenCASCADE loaded in memory for instant 3-D previews.

• The project deliberately chose YAML over RDF/OWL after heated debate, arguing that YAML’s ease of hand-editing outweighs RDF’s semantic-web benefits; contributors fear rigid ontologies or CMS-style forms will discourage high-quality, deep submissions.

• A dynamic, game-style technology-tree generator is planned: Graphviz diagrams that auto-map alternative build paths (router vs. VMC vs. Bridgeport), substitute machines, and skill requirements, all weighted by a user-tunable “preferences vector” (cost, time, shipping, local skills).

• Replicability scope for the “replab” effort is to reproduce components “to an economically significant degree,” targeting MakerBeam-style extrusions, spider dies for aluminum extrusion, and common fasteners, while acknowledging that laser diodes and precision bearings will remain purchased items.

• Skill and certification tracking is still an open problem; proposals range from explicit YAML tags like “skill(stick-welding, intermediate)” to inferring capabilities from completed projects or Fab Academy certificates.

• The toolchain philosophy insists on plain-text, git-backed files to avoid “data jails,” leading the team to seek or build flat-file, git-native CMS layers instead of traditional relational databases.

• Ronja’s 170 km free-space optical link (http://ronja.twibright.com/3d/) is held up as exemplary open-hardware practice, providing ray-traced parts and detailed DIY documentation that SKDB aims to replicate for other devices.

• Adjacent communities such as Kevin Kelly’s Quantified Self meetups (http://www.meetup.com/quantifiedself/) and Pachube’s real-time sensor-data brokerage are noted as overlapping lifelogging and networked-hardware ecosystems that could feed data or use cases into SKDB.

• Installation pain points include PythonOCC not being in standard apt repositories, forcing manual compilation; without it SKDB falls back to YAML-only mode, highlighting the ongoing CAD fragmentation problem and the search for lighter alternatives like OpenSCAD or HeeksCAD.