This was a bit of a weird week for OSAlert. Monday and Tuesday I was unable to reach OSAlert and its related domains from home; we still don’t know why, but the end result was that I could not work on OSAlert, meaning very few items. For the rest, it was a very quiet and relaxed week, with little going on.
Remotes and Connectivity: Reason No. 6 Why We’re Fat – While browsing the ever-wider world web today, I came across a story about IBM’s patent of a sort of “Facebook Remote Control.” It was appalling. Do we seriously need more single-purpose devices that will enable us to sit around more wasting more time than we already do? Does anyone really need to seclude themselves from the world even more to publish their lives on yet another teen-infested network? Must we really always be connected to the net? Read on for my ramble concerning a dark side of technology.
Opera 10 Released – After a long gestation period, Opera has released version 10 of their browser, which comes packed with a whole lot of improvements and new features. It’s got a completely new interface, a turbo mode for those days of bandwith drought, automatic updates (finally!), and lots more.
Debunking Apple vs. Psystar Myths – Apple has responded to Psystar’s new lawsuit today, stating that it is nothing but a stall tactic on Psystar’s end. While I could just paraphrase whatever the filing reads, I decided to take this opportunity to address a number of sentiments and analogies often made in comment threads (not necessarily on OSAlert).
GNOME 3 Launchers Change Behaviour – Have you ever been bitten by accidentally loading multiple instances of the same application in GNOME? When you click on the launcher of an already-running application in GNOME, it will load up another instance of the same application, instead of switching to the already running one. This can lead to bugs and other unforeseen behaviour, which of course isn’t desirable. In GNOME 3, this issue has been resolved.
EU Concerned About Future MySQL – While the US Department of Justice has already given the green light to Sun’s purchase by Oracle, the European Commission is a little more weary about possible antitrust issues. Neelie Kroes, EU commissioner for competition, is especially worried about the future of Sun’s open source endeavours, specifically MySQL.
Kubuntu Gets Some Love – It’s no secret that when it comes to KDE-based distributions, Kubuntu isn’t exactly the cream of the crop. With the release of Kubuntu Karmic Alpha 5, the KDE4 desktop delivered with Kubuntu received some much-needed love. Let’s take a look at what the Kubuntu people are doing.
Firefox To Include Flash Version Checker – Earlier this week, news got out that Apple was shipping an outdated version of Adobe’s Flash Player with Snow Leopard; if you updated to a more recent version before the upgrade to Snow Leopard, you would receive a downgrade. This older version had security holes in it, so Adobe advised everyone to upgrade. The Mozilla team has now announced that Firefox 3.5.3 and 3.0.14 will include a Flash version checker.
I wouldn’t get concerned about MySQL. It’ll be simply known as ‘Oracle training wheels edition’ where any new feature requests will be answered with a “we suggest you upgrade to Oracle” and only bug fixes will be focused on. It’ll be used as a step ladder to get people into more expensive services so that the entry price into the Oracle eco system is low and over time they’ll eventually push you up into more expensive products and services.
What I think is more interesting is where the OpenSolaris desktop strategy sits into the grand scheme of things. I know Larry has always wanted to be in a situation where he can offer a desktop solution and thus have a complete end to end competitive line up with Microsoft. I always wondering this because I still see desktop orientated features being added to OpenSolaris so I wonder whether either they’re continuing or putting a greater emphasise on it. Imagine OpenSolaris + OpenOffice + Oracle backend for all your collaboration requirements. It would put Oracle in a powerful position when offering a solution to businesses; especially those who want an out of the box solution with minimum fuss and bother.
Unfortunately, I suspect that you might be right. After all, neither BerkleyDB nor InnoDB have been significantly updated by Oracle since they bought them.
Which is a shame, because the set of applications where MySQL is appropriate does not overlap at all with the set of applications that actually need Oracle, and you wouldn’t want to use Oracle unless you actually needed it.
Oh well. It’s not like there are no alternatives. PostgreSQL or Firebird, for example. Or Sqlite on the really low end (embedded applications). Or one of the inevitable forks that will occur should Oracle cease development of MySQL. Even something like HBase or HyperTable, if it’s appropriate.
There has always been alternatives.
My understanding of the issue is that the value of MySQL has always centered around the brand rather than around any technical merits. And as a good brand, it is indeed an ideal product for those stepping stones kaiwai mentioned.
But OpenSolaris interests me more.
Not that I use OpenOffice or Oracle, but I wouldn’t mind a solid open source offering instead of the one alternative to which the word “solid” never quite seems to fit.
Reminds me of a discussion with a friend where he raised that issue; MySQL on paper when compared to other free alternatives either comes off equal or inferior. Its only saving grace has come from the LAMP being pushed left, right and centre; MySQL being heavily marketed by the main players in the Linux market and heavily pushed as the backend to many forums.
The problem in the open source world is that there isn’t a company yet who can bring an integrated desktop/server strategy that integrates the client into the server via way which Microsoft does. Take Office and Sharepoint; there are projects that already do exactly that but why hasn’t someone bought the projects together in one cohesive package for end user consumption?
Edited 2009-09-07 20:58 UTC
Maybe you should have tried using Opera Turbo from the new version 10 to get to OSAlert. Let their servers reach OSAlert and send the content to you. If you had access to most of the rest of the net, it might have worked.
Opera Turbo won^aEURTMt work for https pages, which the admin backend uses, so Thom still wouldn^aEURTMt have been able to do any work.
Remotes and connectivity: I don’t care to be honest. It’s not an issue you can give s sufficient answer to.
Opera 10: I’ve had a go at Opera whinging about getting their browser on peoples’ desktops but not looking at what they can do to increase their usage. However, in this day and age where Microsoft no longer cares about IE at all it’s still nice that putting new features into a browser for someone is still important. Opera is still irrelevant to me though because no matter how ACID compliant they say they are you can’t run a hell of a lot of AJAX applications on it.
Apple and Psystar: Apple clones are here to stay because Apple cannot enforce their EULA.
Gnome 3 Launcher: I can’t say this was worthy of front page news. For starters, there is no Gnome 3 right now, apart from a few off-shoots, and only applications can decide whether another window should be opened or not because only an application knows about its own functionality.
EU and MySQL: Honestly, I think it is refreshing that a regulator has asked questions about this rather than simply rubber stamping it and saying “Oooo, technology. We don’t want to deal with that!” Given that MySQL is open sourced then no one will be left in the lurch, but it is concerning that Oracle now owns the copyright to MySQL code. It needs to be asked whether any lock-in can occur there.
Kubuntu: While what the developers are doing is admirable with limited resources, I just think the situation is like trying to build a house on quicksand sometimes.
Firefox: Like it or lump it, a lot of people use Flash and sometimes you have to make sub-optimal decisions for the sake of your users – if they’re using Firefox.
Edited 2009-09-07 15:33 UTC