Information Manager Journal

MySQL anti-patent page update

Updating my earlier post, the MySQL "public patent policy" page now says:

"The MySQL patent program is in the process of being integrated into the Sun patent program.  In general, Sun uses its patent portfolio to defend communities and indemnify customers.  Check back here for further updates.

"In the meantime, check out the blogs of Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, and CTO, Greg Papadapoulos, for Sun's view on software patents."

Array of Windows PCs, and standards, to the rescue

I've maintained a small array of Windows XP PCs for several years. I take a lot of ribbing for not dumping them all and replacing them with a single Mac. But I get more done between the four of them, and occasionally, it comes in handy. This morning, I was trying to re-rip a Red Sovine CD whose final track had some skips when iTunes played it. I had to try three of the four PCs before I could find a CD drive that was able to rip the track with no errors. The PC to which that drive belonged didn't have iTunes installed, so with some trepidation, I fired up RealPlayer, a program I still generally avoid, to rip the track. It did so beautifully, and I was able to drag the track file across my LAN back into the proper iTunes folder. Kudos to RealPlayer for supporting the AAC audio standard. (Yes, I know I should use MP3 format instead, but AAC sounds better.)

Secrecy and open standards: do they mix?

This quote from IBM's Bob Sutor gives me the perfect opportunity to add to this longstanding debate:

"Whatever the outcome of the vote, that secrecy is one of the things that should change in the way IT standards are developed, Sutor said."

There is another recent example of real progress being made on a standard that probably isn't open if secrecy is a no-no. That's CalDAV, which I've written about recently over at Calendar Swamp.

CalConnect meetings, where the main interoperability demos occur, are invitation-only affairs (all members of CalConnect are automatically invited, and membership in CalConnect is open to anyone who can pay the required membership dues). CalConnect does release quite a bit of information about CalDAV and its progress at its Web site, but throughout the process, detailed info about the demos in each meeting are under nondisclosure, the CalDAV spec and related specs evolve while implementations and interoperability testing proceeds in parallel, and standards bodies such as the IETF consider the fruits of CalConnect's labors.

Is the proof in the process, or in the pudding? CalDAV isn't fully rolled out yet, and we can't assess its interoperability across an industry at this time, so I can't answer that question yet. And connecting calendars is a smaller problem than making all XML-based documents portable across all products and services that read and write such documents. But CalConnect seems to put the lie to Sutor's assertion that IT standards must be developed in the open. There's a lot of room for embarrassment of companies whose interim implementations of a standard happen not to work with other implementations. Open that up to wide scrutiny and the companies may just avoid working on the standard, slowing down progress substantially.

I don't have an answer, but blanket statements such as Sutor's strike me as noble aspirations, not ironclad requirements, for open standards to work.

Zoho Writer: Rosetta Stone between ODF and OOXML?

Could a Web 2.0 service become a Rosetta Stone-like gateway between the two incompatible file formats of the next decade--ODF and OOXML? Maybe so. Zoho Writer just announced the ability to export documents to OOXML, and in response to my comment on TechCrunch, Sridhar Vembu of Zoho says it will also be able to import documents from OOXML soon: "Give us a few weeks!" Since the Zoho Writer Web site says it already reads and writes OpenOffice documents, this could be big news, provided it works well. Fortunately, I've got a good test document to try out.

Anti-patent page of MySQL, now part of Sun, goes dark

Go to the MySQL Web site and try to click on the MySQL anti-software patent page, and you won't find it. It's the other shoe dropping as MySQL today became part of Sun Microsystems, which like the rest of the commercial software and services industry, considers software patents a necessary evil.

I tried to find the old MySQL page via archive.org, and I couldn't find it there either. Has anyone out there saved a copy of what the page used to say? UPDATE: Peruse older versions of the missing page here, courtesy of archive.org.

At least, for now, MySQL is still listed as a partner at nosoftwarepatents.com.

UPDATE 2/27/08 9:41 p.m.: Zack Urlocker of MySQL emailed me this evening:

"Let me find out what happened.  We had some pages go missing during the rollout of new systems with the Sun integration earlier this week.  We're trying to fix it all though."

UPDATE 2/28/08 6:30 a.m.: This is what Zack sent me later last evening:

"Ok, as it turns out, many of the pages that were about our corporation have been taken down; e.g. while we can influence, say, the patent policies at Sun, we don't define them.

"That said, by what I know of Sun's patent policies, I think they are pretty decent."

Let's keep those clouds open

Ross Mayfield via Twitter:

"Ajax isn't the future. The future is Ajar -- 'open' apis that may shut at any moment despite the open monkier."

Ross speaks truly. Let's put some teeth back into that open word. Whether it's an open specification promise or some other convention, we need to hold these cloud computing platforms to some kind of standard of openness.

Is .docx a "major format" yet? Well?

This .docx thing continues to amaze me. On the eve of the super-important ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting for OOXML, for Microsoft to post a major background paper on its site in only .docx format strikes me as nothing less than arrogant. Don't believe me? Scribd, the hot new Web-based document viewing site, states that it supports "all major formats." Which does not (yet) include .docx.

Europe takes control

Glyn Moody says it best:

"In terms of oversight and regulation of the computer sector, the centre of gravity has shifted across the Atlantic."

Now would be a good time for the U.S. government to express its appreciation to the EU in some fashion. Even if that doesn't happen, U.S. taxpayers will benefit in the end.

UPDATE: In the meantime, it's ironic to note that a 102KB "announcement overview" is apparently only available as a .docx file, which I can't view in Firefox, or open in OpenOffice or older versions of Word.

UPDATE #2: I just happened to come across this November 2007 eWeek product comparison which notes that certain Linux distributions include variants of OpenOffice that support OOXML and (therefore) .docx files.

Silverlight breaks RSS at Channel 9?

A few days ago the Microsoft Channel 9 Web site started highly recommending use of Microsoft Silverlight. Around the same time, the Channel 9 RSS feed broke. If it's still broke when you read this, you can still read the syntax errors at the feed URL. Is the Silverlight upgrade the culprit? It seems likely to me.

Microsoft, of all companies, should have world-class support of RSS. Let them know you don't like it when it breaks.

UPDATE: As of Thursday, January 24 at noon California time, the feed is working again. Microsoft's Charles Torre emailed me yesterday that "the code is choking, which it shouldn't." The broken feed was the subject of a Channel 9 community thread starting around 7 p.m. last night, but at present, no one from Microsoft has responded to that thread, or to me personally, stating that the feed is working again, or why it broke in the first place.

So will Sun now be a member of Eclipse Foundation?

Since MySQL AB is a member of the Eclipse Foundation, when Sun's acquisition of MySQL is completed later this spring, does Sun automatically become a member of the Foundation? I hope some sharp analyst asked this question during the conference call yesterday. I'm going to listen myself to the replay to check it out. UPDATE: I just listened, and it did not come up. I predict the question of MySQL's continued involvement with Eclipse will become the interesting fault line to watch as this merger of the MySQL and Sun communities goes forward.