Tired of Hierarchies

When will we be able to access our computerized data on the desktop with 
out complete dependence on the hierarchy?  Has anyone in the FOSS 
community tackled this problem?  What software is used?

I am tired of hierarchies. File sytems have hierachies.  My bookmarks 
which could conceivably be non-hierarchical have hierarchies. Mail 
folders enforce hierarchy where perhaps none is needed. The difficulty I 
have with hierarchy is that you have to remember the hierarchy. That or 
the names given to elements in the hierarchy have to be intuitive.  The 
deeper and wider a hierarchy becomes, the more likely it is to be useless.

I would like all of the data that I use everywhere to be one click away 
at all times.  But placing all of that data in one central place is also 
unmanageable.  Thus we employ search and filtering. To do that we employ 
proper metadata, tagging, or brute force searching.

In a library I can access pretty much every volume in two steps.  Search 
the index, then go to the location of the volume and pick it from the 
shelf. Their is a pattern here.  The easiest systems that I use all have 
a "search/index" paradigm attached to them.

I keep an image in my mind of where to find data that I use during the 
course of my employment or hobbies. My employer has incredibly good 
information systems.  I would say that I can access many millions of 
documents somewhat readily. Unmanaged files in hierarchies quickly 
become irretrievable.

Regards,
Jason C. Wells
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