What a beautiful day :-)

[via Jeremy]

And this could have quite a big impact on MySql…. I haven’t known that Innobase is so deeply integrated in MySql, thanks for this input Jeremy ;-)

As reported in several sources (Slashdot, InfoWorld, AP on Yahoo, Reuters), Oracle has acquired Innobase Oy for an undisclosed sum of money. This appears to be a strategic move by Oracle to put MySQL between a rock and hard place.

Innobase is the company that provides the underlying code for the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL. It’s the de-facto choice for developers who need high concurrency, row-level locking, and transactions in MySQL. For many years now, MySQL AB and Innobase Oy (founded by Heikki Tuuri) have worked closely together to make that technology a seamless part of MySQL.

Like all of the MySQL code, InnoDB is dual licensed. That means you can freely use it under the GPL or buy a license for it if your usage would violate the GPL.

I’ve always wondered why MySQL AB didn’t buy Innobase Oy years ago. It always made complete sense from where I sat. But I’m hardly an insider when it comes to the relationship between those companies. Needless to say, that relationship just got far more “interesting.”

I hope, for the sake of the community and the company (I’ve known many MySQL employees for years), that Oracle is true to their promises. But it is Oracle, so I’m naturally skeptical.

[via Jeff & BetaNews]

Sure, Google couldn’t avoid to launch an RSS reader. Have a look at the Google Reader. You need a Gmail account. Really slow, but they will surely solve that in the near future ;-)

Google took the covers off a Web based RSS reader at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco Friday. The tool, appropriately dubbed Google Reader, serves as an aggregator for Web feeds and is designed much like the company’s Gmail service with Starred favorites and keyboard shortcuts.

[via BusinessWeek]

An interview of Linus Torvalds in BusinessWeek.

Hardware companies are selling more than $1 billion in servers to run Linux every quarter, while sales of servers running proprietary software continue to fall. And now, slowly but surely, Linux is making inroads on the desktop as well. According to IBM, 10 million desktops ran Linux in 2004 — a 40% jump from a year ago.

[…] What you see is that new blood tends to concentrate on the things that the old projects didn’t do, and thus the horizons for open source keep on widening.

The applications and services [companies] are just a sign that the core competencies of open source have grown up enough that these things make sense. It certainly wasn’t something you could do five years ago; the infrastructure just wasn’t there.

What about Linux on the desktop? Why hasn’t it taken off?
Oh, it has absolutely taken off, but some people seem to think that “take off” means that suddenly everybody is running it. That’s clearly not true. It’s a very slow conversion.

[via Jeremy]

So, first the introduction of Jeremy :-)

Several years into this whole blogging thing, the technology and tools designed to facilitate this global conversation all suck.

Then, his conclusion.

The promise of the blogosphere is a loosely connected global network of conversations with an incredibly low barrier to entry. The reality is that the tools are still far too immature for the current scale of this growing network. Worse yet, most aggregators are designed to mimic e-mail or usenet news clients rather than embracing the highly connected nature of blog posts and comments, not the mention the typically short “decay” periods associated with the discussion around most posts.

I must say…I agree with this analysis. We need a kind of quantum leap in this field… Blogging means a *lot* of manual processes, which are all quite time-consuming.

[via InformationWeek]

Six interesting learnings about the usage of Open Source components in big companies.

1. Most large, multi-billion-dollar companies don’t know how much open source they’re actually using. It’s introduced into the IT environment by developers looking to build the best applications in the shortest amount of time possible.
2. Most companies don’t have a budget, per se, for open source. Open source is often used to help launch side projects that otherwise would stay on the shelf because there isn’t enough IT money to go around.
3. Open source is responsible for changing the character of large IT operations even more than it is changing the composition of these operations. […] Perhaps the greatest driver of open source adoption is that programmers like it.
4. There seems to be a consensus among large companies that open-source is a superior model for avoiding per-CPU software licensing fees that quickly add up in the data center.
5. There’s an awful lot of the open-source JBoss application server and MySQL database being used by large companies. […] One of the reasons open source has been successful, particularly in large businesses that have already made significant IT investments, is that companies can pick and choose the pieces they want to use, Fleury [CEO of JBoss] pointed out, adding, “A mark of the success of open source is that it’s modular by design.”
6. Big companies don’t want to get pinched by intellectual-property lawsuits over open source. […] Essentially JBoss will replace any code found to be in violation of intellectual-property rights.

I have completely forgotten to mention our strategic workshop at Waldgarten (website in German) on July 20, 2005 ;-) What for a view!

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Have you ever seen a crane beeing unmounted??

Received today per Email from Spread Firefox.

The Spread Firefox Team became aware this week that the server hosting Spread Firefox, our community marketing site, has been accessed by unknown remote attackers who attempted to exploit a security vulnerability in TWiki software installed on the server. The TWiki software was disabled as soon as we were aware of the attempts to access SpreadFirefox.com. This exploit was limited to SpreadFirefox.com and did not affect mozilla.org web sites or Mozilla software.

We have scanned Spread Firefox servers and at this time do not believe any sensitive data was taken, but as a precautionary measure we have shutdown the site and will be rebuilding the web site from scratch. We also recommend that you change your Spread Firefox password and the password of any accounts where you use the same password as your Spread Firefox account. We will notify you again when the site is back up with instructions on how to change your password. (Note: We do use MD5 hashing on the passwords, but MD5 cannot protect all passwords against off-line dictionary style attacks.)

After Spread Firefox was compromised in July, we instituted procedures to ensure that we apply all security fixes to the software running the site (Drupal and PHP) as soon as they become available. Unfortunately, those procedures overlooked the installation of the TWiki software since it is not used by the main Spread Firefox site. When the system is rebuilt, all the software will be audited to ensure that security updates will be applied in a timely manner. We deeply regret this incident and any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sincerely,

Spread Firefox Team
Mozilla Foundation

Mercedes-Benz released its 9th version of the Mixed Tape. Still for free. Download here.

Opening the current compilation, British Soul sensation Alice Russell has already been likened to Joss Stone and Alicia Keys. Above and beyond, this month’s Mixed Tape features a range of artists from London and Berlin, Europe’s undisputed capitals of hip. While London sends Simon Hectic (soulful Hip Hop), ECT (Broken Beats) and Talc (pure Pop) into the mix, combining timeless pop moments with cutting edge production techniques, Berlin’s varied contingent (a. o. Data MC (Electro-Hip Hop), Back2Square1 (Spoken Word) and Multiple Exposure
(R&B;)) disdain all genre restrictions in favour of their very own capital sound.
Furthermore, Mixed Tape 09 features many further forays into the global music scene between World Beats (Goya-Project) and Italian Disco Dub (E-The-Hot).

[via BetaNews]

Microsoft over the weekend revealed that PDF support would be integrated into the next version of its productivity software, known as Office 12. The announcement was made on Saturday at the Global MVP Summit, Microsoft’s annual confab for its most valuable professionals.

The company says that it’s adding the new format to promote “sharing across multiple platforms.” However, the move fits in with Microsoft’s other recent efforts to take on Adobe in areas where its rival has enjoyed considerable success.

Jones reported that on the Office Online support site, Microsoft receives approximately 30,000 searches a week for PDF support. That made for a pretty easy decision as to what new feature would interest the most users.