links for 2011-04-20: Who should(n't) by an iPad 2; Oracle gives up on OpenOffice

• Apple iPad 2: Who should buy and who should pass - Blind fans of Apple products will still just go buy one, but this article is a good dose of reality on why you should or shouldn't get one.
• Oracle gives up on OpenOffice - At least the LibreOffice crew didn't think Oracle got open-source and forked, and Oracle was unable to stop it.  Does Oracle not "get" open-source?

links for 2011-01-26: AWS Simple Email Service; Marc Fleury on Oracle and Open Source; No screenshots on Windows Phone 7

• Introducing the Amazon Simple Email Service - Another in the line of "simple" services.
• Oracle and Open Source. NOT GOOD - Marc's view on how Oracle is handling open source, based largely on what has happened with OpenOffice and Hudson.
• Capturing screenshots in Windows Phone 7's future? - Hiding behind DRM seems like a poor excuse.  And no one has ever asked for it?

links for 2011-01-24: Forrester on the Future of Java; Honda 1-ups Segway; Linux distros switching from OpenOffice to LibreOffice

• The Future of Java - "Over time, developers will begin to view Java as a server-side language for enterprises — like COBOL."
• Honda Personal Mobility Concept U3-X - Honda 1-ups (or 2 or 3?) Segway.
• Ubuntu opts for LibreOffice over Oracle's OpenOffice - Justified or not, Oracle just can't win with open-source advocates, developers, and Linux distributions

links for 2011-01-21: AWS Elastic Beanstalk; Googled copied Sun's Java code

• AWS Elastic Beanstalk: A Quick and Simple Way into the Cloud - AWS continues to avoid going up stack to compete with partners, but still offer new services and value.
  
• Oops: Android contains directly copied Java code, strengthening Oracle's case - That would be a big ooops!
  
• Oops: No copied Java code or weapons of mass destruction found in Android - Or maybe not.
  

links for 2010-12-17: Invisible open-source; Oracle Apps on EC2; Pirate or DRM; Netflix on AWS

• 2010: The year open-source went invisible - It has gone mainstream and is even a pre-requisite in some markets.
• Oracle Apps on EC2 - You could do it on your own before, easier now.
• Pirate or buy DRM? - Not a fan of DRM it would seem.
• Netflix lessons from using AWS - Also read this for why they switched.

links for 2010-12-15: Microsoft at crossroads; OpenJDK for OS X; Java lawsuits; Oracle Cloud Office

• Microsoft: A big ship at crossroads; What else is new? - I don't think there is any question they'll survive, the titanic references are off, but will they flourish in the new markets?
  
• Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for OSX - I missed this when it was announced, but is great news.
  
• Oracle mobile Java licensing suit boomerangs - Can't we all just get along?  This this also.
  
• Oracle Announces Oracle Cloud Office and Oracle Open Office 3.3 - It is great that it is "announced", but they previewed it at Open World.  Where can we actually see it?  Only mention is in the datasheet where it says to call to get a demo account.  Not looking for mass adoption I guess.
  

links for 2010-12-11: Oracle 'anti-competitive'; Linux on SPARC; McNealy Speaks; Air Force bans removable media

• Oracle 'anti-competitive,' customers dissatisfied - I don't think it takes a report for people to see what Oracle's business practices are like, but how far is a company supposed to go to be "competitive"?  Isn't the objective to beat the competition?  Wouldn't other companies do similar things if they had the same opportunity?  Customers need to vote with their pocketbooks.
  
• Oracle to port Linux to SPARC - It makes sense.  Oracle wants customers to buy from Oracle regardless of the product the customer wants.
• McNealy on Sun and open-source - A good read, great to hear Scott talk.
• US Air Force bans removable media - I'm surprised it wasn't already banned.

links for 2010-11-11: Oracle raises MySQL pricing; ASF draws line in sand over JCP; WS-I completes their journey; PG West Notes

• Oracle kills low-priced MySQL support - This had been rumored and was expected, but now we know the details.  The lowest priced offerings are gone, Standard Edition at $2K/yr now the cheapest, differentiation between editions is now with different add-ons, not level of support, and a server is limited to 4 sockets.  Note that if you weren't buying the cheapest offering, the prices haven't really increased.
• ASF Statement on JCP - Same issue as there has been for awhile, but now saying they'll withdraw if not addressed.
• Microsoft and IBM web-control war finally silenced - Interesting read on the motivations for WS-I and entertaining quip on SOA: "WS-* and the WS-I paved the way for the Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) bubble, a cacophony of hype about a set of systems that could never be delivered but paid the wages of consultants and enterprise vendors, and involved some kind of choreography wrapped in a portal."
  
• Ex-Red Hatters eye Larry's MySQL wobblers
  
• Ex-Sun boss gives Ellison open-source wedgie
  

links for 2010-10-22: AWS free for a year; PostgreSQL vs MySQL; Stacking the JCP election; Java on OS X; What Steve could have said; Adivce to Oracle regarding Java

• Amazon Web Services: Try us free for a year - Something worth looking in to.
• PostgreSQL vs. MySQL: How to Select the Right Open-Source Database - A balanced well written article.
  
• Stacking the JCP election - An interesting read even if it is a bit biased (and I don't know if it is or isn't).
• Steve Jobs Comments on Apple's Java Discontinuation - Some interesting history from James.
  
• What Steve could have said - "We’ve been in the computer business for a long time and we’ve learned that 80% of people just aren’t very interesting. They don’t need to create that much content, because when they do, most it isn’t very good. The iPad actually saves them from themselves because it keeps them from creating a bunch of useless stuff that no one else wants to read."
• Dear Oracle, Get a Clue - Some good advice.  Is Oracle listening?

links for 2010-10-20: SkySQL forking?; IBM, Oracle, and Java; Linux catching Microsoft; Developer Intelligence; Twitter predicts stocks; McNealy at PG West

• SkySQL will try to drive MySQL fork, Oracle's ouster - Not a fork yet, but supporting one (MariaDB) and not ruling out creating one.
  
• IBM, Oracle and Java: The Q&A - @sogrady's always well written Q&A with a kind mention of the questions I sent him.
• Linux Starts to Eat Microsoft’s Lunch in Servers - Shows Linux growth (79% adding more Linux vs 21% adding more Windows), but it is a lot easier to show growth when coming from behind.
  
• Introducing Project Arcturus, Part 1: The World’s First and Only Developer Intelligence Tool - A great use of data to provide insight into developers.  Kudos to RedMonk for building it.  ReadWriteWeb has a review here.
  
• Twitter mood predictions the stock market - Another fascinating use of data.
• Scott McNealy Keynote Speaker at PG West - A great opportunity to hear Scott speak.

links for 2010-10-10: If Oracle and MySQL had a child; AWS weakness a strength?; JavaOne content will cost you; Android revolution; Short-term focus hurts R&D

• If Oracle and MySQL had a child - Why not get the best of both worlds with PostgreSQL?
• Amazon Web Services: an instance of weakness as strength - Most people like simple evolution when making change in the enterprise.
  
• JavaOne 2010 content costs money? - In the past, the content from JavaOne was generally made available for free to the community, but the link seems to indicate it now costs $245 or you have to have been an attendee.  Past content on SDN only includes 2008 and 2009.  To be fair, there is still a lot of free content but this seems to be a change.
• The five factors powering the Android revolution
  
• R&D: Short-term focus, cynicism hampers us - Who else will innovate just for the sake of doing so?
  

links for 2010-10-08: More on MySQL price hikes; Jaspersoft predicts Java/MySQL resurgence; Salesforce.com adds REST APIs

• MySQL price hikes reveal depth of Oracle's wallet love: Time for Postgres? - Mentions same content I posted earlier, but clearly suggests PostgreSQL as the natural alternative.
  
• Months After Oracle's Acquisition of Sun, OSS Survey Predicts Resurgence of Java and MySQL - Survey doesn't address what people's answers would have been had Oracle not acquired Sun (perhaps the "resurgence" was already happening and it has diminished under Oracle), and in a few cases the conclusions are classic viewing the data the way one wants.  For example, their highlight #1 is that more than three quarters said MySQL use would increase or stay the same.  That is convenient grouping of answers as their data could be used to make the exact opposite statement, i.e. more than three quarters said MySQL use would decrease or stay the same.
  
• Salesforce.com Finally Adding REST API - While their approach to their SOAP API was somewhat RESTful already, the addition of true REST APIs is welcome.
  

links for 2010-10-7: IE market share dips below 50%; Analysis of Google's response to Oracle; SQL and Big Data

• EU dings Microsoft's IE browser market share, says Statcounter - The move towards other browsers continues.
  
• Google responds to Oracle's Android patent lawsuit, we break it down - Google accuses Oracle of flip-flopping, and implies if they've violated anything than Apache Harmony has too.
  
• Who's suing who in the mobile business - Wow, I didn't know Nokia was at the center of so many of the suits.
• Who's suing who in the telecoms trade - Similar to the above, but with a bullet on each suit.
• Why relational databases make sense for big data - Good car, Indy car, helicopter analogy from Ed.

links for 2010-10-04: Forking of Java; Stewardship of Java

• Is it time to fork Java? - Clearly disappointed by JavaOne (JavaHalf?), Greg proposes "Lava".
• Time to fork Java? - Sacha's response.  Provides some good history on the issues and highlights Oracle's flip-flopping positions.  "when ORCL’s lawyers have the same opinion two-weeks in a row, the only conclusion you can draw is that they changed their mind an even number of times."
• Java: The Unipolar Moment - James points out many instances where single vendor stewardship is not the norm and why that can't be the case for Java.

links for 2010-10-02: WebP saves bandwidth over JPEG; Java, OSGi, Oracle, and more;

• Google offers JPEG alternative for faster Web - It is fair to say that the image compression algorithms we use today were developed when we had CPU and memory limitations, so why not update them to make the web snappier?
• Java, OSGi, Oracle, and more - James doesn't paint too bright a picture of Oracle's stewardship thus far.

links for 2010-09-30: Gosling on JavaOne; MySQL prices going up; Gmail capitulates; MySQL vs PostgreSQL performance; PHP SDK for AWS

• JavaOne was fun - Some interesting, albeit likely biased, observations.
• Oracle raising prices on MySQL - Rationalizing the pricing to Oracle's way is to be expected, but the removal of Basic and Silver is important and what the prices actually are will be doubly so.
• Gmail unthreads messages - I prefer threaded views and find search works much better than sort.
• MySQL vs PostgreSQL performance - Simply confirms what I think we all knew: PostgreSQL is much faster for inserts, MySQL slightly faster for selects.
• New AWS SDK for PHP - Adds to the existing Java and .NET SDKs.

links for 2010-09-28: OpenOffice.org forked into LibreOffice; Free Software Defenders; Platform as a Service Adoption

• LibreOffice: A fresh page for OpenOffice - As other open-source projects from Sun have been terminated, kept as tokens for the community, or left to wither away with no investment (the list includes OpenESB, OpenSSO, Mural, OpenSolaris, and more), it isn't a surprise to see a spinoff from OpenOffice but this is one that certainly has more visibility as it is actually software end-users use.  It will be interesting to see how things play out and if Oracle joins and grants use of the name.
  
• OpenOffice goes its own way - Another story on the subject.  Oracle has not commented yet but IBM has although with no commitment one way or the other.  Google, Novell, Ubuntu, and others are supporting the foundation.  See the FAQ too.
• The Defenders of Free Software - Interesting read.  I have no doubt that there are 100s of violations or improper use of open-source out there.
• Platform as a Service: Current vs Future Returns - Everyone says it is a matter of time until enterprises are on the Cloud, but how long will it be before more than Amazon style IaaS is accepted?
  

links for 2010-09-27: Benioff fires back at Larry; PostgreSQL vs MySQL Performance; Droid X Dumping

• Salesforce's Benioff: "Clouds aren't in a box" - A host of great one-liners, a couple of the best:
  
• “The cloud is a multi-tenant shared architecture that runs on a pay-as-you-go model,” not a million dollars just to get started.
  
• We’re not going to show you computers taller than you. We’re not going to show you a cloud in a box because clouds aren’t in a box. They never were. That’s the whole idea.
  
• Database speed tests (mysql and postgresql) - part 1 - It doesn't appear to be tuned much at all, but interesting results nonetheless.  MySQL 5x slower?
  
• Why I dumped my Droid - What leading smart phone doesn't have battery issues?
  

links for 2010-09-21: Amazon Hiding in Plain Sight; PostgreSQL 9.0 released; iPad good for two things; Oracle and HP make up; Unbreakable Enterprise Linux kernel performance doubts

• Hiding in Plain Sight: The Rise of Amazon Web Services - It really is surprising AWS doesn't get credit or press for much of what they are doing.  When they announce something they have it working and available, often with a free/beta tier.  When most other vendors announce something, it isn't available yet and when it is, you have to pay for it, get a machine, install it, etc.
  
• EnterpriseDB Announces Support for PostgreSQL 9.0 - 9.0 has some great new replication features that make it even more of a natural cheaper alternative to Oracle.
• The iPad is good for only two things - Admittedly, the first thing is pretty big and broad.
• Oracle and HP settle spat - Having the issue prolonged would not have been good for HP.
• Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Which Is The Best Open Source DB Of Them All? - Will PostgreSQL fill the perceived void created by Oracle's ownership of MySQL?
  
• Oracle announces Unbreakable Enterprise Linux kernel - This story seems to doubt the performance claims.
  

links for 2010-09-20: Flight data in Google Earth; PostgreSQL performance fixing; Browser war hurting us?; Oracle's new Cloud definition

• View Near Real-time Flights over the U.S. in Google Earth - This is very cool.
• PostgreSQL planner performance fixing - Open source isn't just about "free", for some it is about improving the code!
• Is the browser war pushing us forward or holding us back? - If it really is just about full HTML5 support, any issues should only be temporary hopefully.
  
• Oracle has new definition of Cloud - As the author puts it, this isn't Cloud, it is Cloud washing.  Now, perhaps this box could be useful for Cloud vendors, but if you have to buy a box and more capacity than you might need, it isn't Cloud.