All file systems I've encountered have been based on folders - you have a root folder, which contains files and subfolders, which in turn contains files and subfolders, and so on.
Is there a better alternative to organizing files, and will it replaced the current system any time soon? Feel free to include some history about file systems, if you judge that's in order in your answer.
Interpret the term "better" any way you please.
Is there a better alternative to organizing files,
Yes.
will it replaced the current system any time soon?
No.
You can't replace the hierarchy as a way to organize concepts.
All file systems have hard links: the current file systems are not hierarchical.
People use them that way because people like that.
However, the file system is a "networked" database (not a hierarchical one). We just don't make much use of the network capabilities for one obvious reason. Anything other than a simple hierarchy is confusing.
I don't think so, since there have been some attempts (e.g. WinFS), which all have been killed off. The "folder" structure is very common hierarchical structure. I can be viewed as taxonomy. I feel that it's a natural way to organize resources.
On the other hand, you can have front end views, like "recent files" or "all my music". But there is no real reason to implement that on low level, in the filesystem itself. You can have data structure for that build on top of the hierarchical filesystem.
Some experimental operating systems don't even have any files. They have some orthogonal persistence machinery. Look at some academic OS projects (Coyotos, Grasshopper, IsaacOS, etc...).
And old Lisp Machines in the 1980s might also had no file systems as we know them today.
The inactive tunes.org site had some discussions (from the previous century) about OS without files.
The issue with non-file based OSes is that they need to re-implement everything; even a C compiler needs some filesystem.... And sadly, there are few economical incentives to develop such an OS from scratch.
Notice however that our terabyte disks are a dirty mess (hierarchical file systems are not the best way to organize data in them), and it would be great if we could have something better than Unix inspired file systems (which have been copied in Windows).
Hierarchical file systems have been invented with Multics (1969); Unix copied them.
I think the folder based, tree-like file system is common but it's not the best. Indeed i believe a good classification of a file is better than to place a file in a certain 'place' e. g. folder.
Files are different in content and so, a mp3-file contains different meta information compared to let's say a png-file. Shown in a list with columns a problem occurs, just columns like size, creation-date etc. are in common.
If you look at windows explorer for example, the columns change when certain file types are detected. If you habe lot's of mp3-files in a directory for example, columns like Album, Title etc. occur. If amongst these files there is a png-file, these columns/cells don't make sense for that particular file/row.
I have found out that many times it would make sense, to place a file into more than one folder, just because there are more than one classification properties that identify the file. But why should a 'place', a 'folder' classify a file?
If i have a car, it doesn't matter if it is in the garage, in a parking lot or elsewhere, it's not the 'place' that identifies my car, but it's properties.
When all my files are classified properly and accurate by meta-data, it doesn't mind where it is stored, it's just in some 'cloud'. If i need to obtain a certain file, this should be done by specifications of the meta-data.
