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Open Source means that users have the freedom to see how software works, adapt it for the own needs, fix bugs and limitations and contribute back to the community.

Microsoft’s Dis-Services For Unix

By Ted Roche on September 2, 2005 in Microsoft, OpenSource, Technology

Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley notes Microsoft SFU: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. Microsoft is shelving the standalone version of its Services for Unix (SFU) product, with no plans to do future enhancements.” Portions of Services For Unix will be integrated into Microsoft’s new operating systems. For those trying to maintain a stable environment, don’t look for any significant updates, although Microsoft promised some support through 2011 or 2014.

The complaint that Open Source doesn’t have a roadmap that can be depended upon is turned upside down when you look at vendors swapping, switching, renaming, pruning and just plain dropping features that are likely mission-critical for some of their customers. Customers have no control over commercial software. If you don’t like what’s happening with an Open Source project, you own the code. You can rewrite it in the direction you want it to go, pay a developer to do it for you, or foment a split or branch to encourage developers to follow your roadmap. Try doing that with your commercial vendors.

Groklaw: MA Chooses OASIS OpenDoc XML as Office Standard – Requesting Comments

By Ted Roche on September 1, 2005 in OpenSource, Technology

This is a bit of a miracle… The State of Massachusetts is backing OpenDocument v. 1.0 as the standard for office applications, text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings and presentations, and all agencies are expected to migrate by January 1, 2007.

Awesome!

Internet Content locked in a silo

By Ted Roche on September 1, 2005 in Microsoft, OpenSource

Years ago, I posted slides and white papers from many Visual FoxPro conferences, and I’ve been adding to this as time allows. Recently, I’ve noticed that a number of the older slides from the years 1997-2001 cannot by viewed from most browsers. Attempting to open the link here, [Edit:bad link fixed] for example results in an error message “This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to show properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer… If you would like to proceed anyway, click here. ”

This “error” occurs in Safari 2.01, FireFox 1.06, and Camino 0.8. Opera 8.02 attempts to open the files, but ends up with a set of black-background frames with slide titles and broken graphic links but no content. IE6/Win opens and displays the content, with handy little widgets.

Looking under the hood, these are former PowerPoint presentations converted using a version of Microsoft Office. As time allows, I’ll reload the original presentations in OpenOffice.org and repost the slides in a format that all can use.

Momentum and Perception of Open Source Databases Grow

By Ted Roche on August 31, 2005 in LAMP, MySQL, OpenSource, Technology

Computerworld News notes Open-source databases grow. “Momentum around open-source alternatives is swelling, with a number of developments in recent months illustrating the market’s growing maturity.”

Introductory Python course in Merrimack NH

By Ted Roche on August 26, 2005 in OpenSource, Python, Technology

At last night’s PySIG meeting at the Amoskeag Business Incubator, Kent Johnson announced that he’ll be teaching a course on Programming in Python for beginning programmers for the Merrimack Schools Adult Ed program. At $120 for 10 nights of two hours each, it sounds like a bargain. Unfortunately, I’ll be teaching LAMP at the NHTI Center for Training and Business Development, otherwise, I might attend myself.

Linux Use in SMB Servers 20% and growing!

By Ted Roche on August 22, 2005 in OpenSource, Technology

IBM’s LinuxLine free newsletter, produced by Database Trends and Applications, reports: “Linux Use Among SMB Developers Exceeds Enterprise Use“.

The use of Linux is even stronger among developers working in small and mid-sized business than those working in larger enterprises, according to a new study by Evans Data Corp. In a survey of 500 SMB developers, the market researcher found that 19 percent have Linux running on their servers the majority of the time, compared to seven percent among enterprise developers. Twenty-seven percent of the developers in the SMB community anticipate running Linux the majority of the time next year compared to 10 percent in the enterprise arena.

The numbers are higher than I would have expected, but the real kicker is the number they don’t point out: the self-predicted 30% growth year-over-year system admins are predicting in Linux adoption!

Managing Hierarchical Data in MySQL

By Ted Roche on August 22, 2005 in MySQL, OpenSource, Technology

On the MySQL developer’s support site, Mike Hillyar has an article on hierarchies in relational databases. “Most users at one time or another have dealt with hierarchical data in a SQL database and no doubt learned that the management of hierarchical data is not what a relational database is intended for. The tables of a relational database are not hierarchical (like XML), but are simply a flat list. Hierarchical data has a parent-child relationship that is not naturally represented in a relational database table.”

As I pointed out last week in Chris Date’s interview, it may not be intuitively obvious that flat files linked with relations are appropriate for structures like this, but in fact this is what they were made for. Relational databases excel at storing complex structures, as long as the designer understands the structure they are trying to represent. Despite a questionable start, Mike goes on to write an interesting and insightful article.

Passed MySQL Core Certification

By Ted Roche on August 19, 2005 in OpenSource

I took the MySQL Core Certification exam yesterday, and passed. It was a tough exam, a bit too picky about edge cases, I think, but I passed. The NDA pretty much forbids me saying more about the exam. Fair enough. The exam is only valid if the Q&A aren’t published, otherwise, the value of the exam and certification plummets, as happened with “paper CNEs” and “paper MCSEs”.

I have earned the MySQL Core Certification

The MySQL folks don’t seem as constrained by the NDA, and post a “real life story” as well as point to two blog entries. That ought to give you a pretty good idea of what’s involved. I’ll wait a while before taking the Pro certification, as it’ll require a few weeks of dedicated night and weekend studying, but I think that’s the proper level of certification for a software development consultant like me to have.

New Linux Thin Clients from HP?

By Ted Roche on August 11, 2005 in OpenSource, Technology

I may have missed the initial announcement when these shipped, but browsing through a PC Connection catalog yesterday, I spotted the HP t5515 Thin Client Workstation on sale for a little over $300. This is a diskless PC with a Transmeta Crusoe CPU, 128 Mb RAM, Linux 2.4 burned into Flash RAM, video, audio, NIC, spare PCI slot and USB2. Looks cute, and I could see a lot of places where clients with browser-based data entry, mail and other processes could benefit from the small cost, form factor and power demands to make for a better, cheaper office. Hey, hang an external drive off the USB connection and you have a PC!

HP is a pretty open company and has been pushing Open Source solutions on many platforms. I was surprised to dig through the technical documentation to discover that the Linux image burned into Flash RAM can only be made with a proprietary toolkit from MetroWorks under a fee-based licensing scheme. This looks like a prime opportunity for someone to reverse-engineer the box and allow developers to customize the image to their own needs. The base image that ships with the HP Thin Client includes a proprietary Citrix client, Altiris image management tool, and other software that a developer could clear out, leaving room to customize the box. (The default image also ships with Mozilla, the Open Source rdesktop Windows RDP client, VNC client and VNC server.)

A local technician tells me that his past experiences with thin clients indicated that they should only be used in controlled and air-conditioned environments and that they would tend to overheat if left in a warm room. I’ll be interested to follow how these devices fare.

Update: here’s a review at OSNews.

Demoronate your .Doc to .html

By Ted Roche on August 10, 2005 in Microsoft, OpenSource

Slashdot includes an interesting question on Sanely Moving from Word to the Web? where the poster asks how to convert Microsoft Word documents to clean and valid HTML files. HTML Tidy is a thing I’ve used in the past and is mentioned. A new one to me is the aptly-named demoroniser.

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