I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I’ve been using DBDesigner 4 from FabForce, an open source visual design tool, and apart from working around a number of bugs, I’ve found it practical to design from scratch. The big plus, it works under Linux.

With the announcement that this was being incorporated into MySQL, called MySQL Workbench, I was looking forward to getting my hands on it. I guess that was about 8 months ago. Finally about 6 weeks ago, Version 1.0.0-alpha was released for Linux. Unfortunately it didn’t work, would not even start for me. Logged as Bug #15421, which got marked as a duplicate of …

Would it not be great if on the MySQL website there was a page of stats (updated daily) that provided statistics like number of installations, a breakdown of versions registered (not certain I like that exact word) , OS’s, countries etc. More specifically, some useful stats on the engine types in practical use, avg number of tables per database etc. Of course the types of stats could be limitless, but with the success of MySQL as well as other open source projects, more imperial figures on installations other then just downloads I think would definitely benefit given the current momentum. (Availability of information to competitors could be both a good and bad thing.) Perhaps figures can be shown in percentages, not actual numbers.

Anyway, nice idea you say, we can all come up with ideas, but how could you implement something like this. …

There is a myth out there that open source offers a convenient way to save a dying company's proprietary product, or provides a way to head off the eventual bleeding dry of a successful closed-source product (like Oracle's database, for example). The 451 Group has news for you:

Nope. Sorry. Not going to happen.

In its Cashing in on Open Source report, they make the following point:

Pure plays commodifying new sectors and offering professional support may be profitable - some are remarkably so. Examples include the Linux distributors, JBoss and MySQL. Traditional companies, however, should not expect open source initiatives to contribute substantially to the bottom line. The cost of building a developer community (Eclipse, OpenSolaris, openadaptor, eBay) is a sunk cost. Returns are intangible, such as grassroots …

The 451 Group's Cashing in on Open Source report contains an off-hand comment that I think deserves more comment. It says:

Because human-readable programming languages compile to machine-readable binaries, it'?s possible to sell usable software without the source code attached.What The 451 doesn't point out is that the inverse corollary is also true: because most people don't care about source code, and because compiling from source to a binary executable is work/drudgery, you can make a business out of distributing free and open source code and charging customers a fat fee for a "certified" binary.

Don't believe me? Take Red Hat as an example. It makes its money by charging customers to get the magical, certified Red Hat. In truth, it's the same RHEL you can download for free, but the assurance of certification …

It always surprises me how knee-jerk we can be in the open source world. If someone writes a glowing report of Project X, we slobber all over ourselves to salute them, however inaccurate they might be. If someone indicates a need for improvement, we slam them.

My recent post on OpenOffice is a case in point. I just don't think it's very good, and I also don't think it matters that it's not very good (because my goal in life is not to beat Microsoft at its game, but rather to make Microsoft play on my turf. Here are a few reasons OpenOffice is weak, and is not likely to ever attain Apache/Linux/BIND/etc. status.

• OpenOffice isn't a piece of software that most developers care about, and developer-aligned open source software is much more likely to be superior software. If there's no itch to be …

The Linux Format magazine is having it’s annual reader awards in a number of categories.

These include (I’ve include my picks after each category):

• Best Desktop Application (Gnome)
• Best Distro (CentOS 4.2)
• Best Development Tool (Eclipse 3.1)
• Best Hardware Support (NVidia for my Dell Laptop)
• Free Software Project of the Year (Gaim)
• Embedded Linux Award
• Best Server Software (MySQL 5.0)
• Best Office Software (Open Office …

Sometimes I don't know whether to consider Laura Merling, Executive Director of SDForum, a friend or a foe. She and the SDForum team (in alliance with Andrew Aitken and the Olliance team) are putting on what looks to be an excellent open source event in January. Confound her for staging a quality event right before OSBC! :-)

SDForum's Open Source Think Tank

Seriously, I like the idea, and it's something to which my recent blog entry speaks: we need more intelligent discourse between members of the open source business community. SDForum's event is designed to be just that: a think tank for leading open source executives.

I've been fortunate to be friends with the executive teams at MySQL, SugarCRM, JasperSoft, and others. Talking …

I took the chance today to order some books from Amazon today to add to the library. Of course I’m still reading 2 current books Spring in Action and the MySQL Certification Study Guide in order to site the second MySQL Professional Certification Exam.

As with most things, you start off looking or reading on the web for something and you end up completely somewhere else. In this case, it was looking at Linux Software Labs (Australia) at the price of their Linux Distribution CD’s, which lead me to the book Beyond Java listed on their site. …

Linux Insider has a great story on Nessus' move to closed source with its 3.0 product. The article has some wringing their hands about the decision, acting as if open source were going to shrivel and die because the code's primary developer decided he couldn't make a living off free-loaders.

And so Nessus is facing complaints from users like Alan Shimel, Chief Strategy Officer for StillSecure:

"Here's the danger we are running into," he said. "People contribute resources to these communities, whether it be time, money, or code. When they see everything they give converted for the commercial success of an individual rather than as a community as a whole, how long do you think they are …

I’m preparing to speak at the next MySQL Brisbane Users Group in Febraury 2006. My topic will be Know your competitor - A MySQL Developers Guide to Using Oracle Express Edition.

Having a strong background in Oracle, and having been using MySQL for the past 5 years, the release of Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (XE) as a Free offering (with limitations of 1 CPU, 1GB Ram, and 4GB disk) is an interesting move by Oracle.

I’ve written a number of recent comments on various Oracle/MySQL things including Responses to some Oracle v?s MySQL Questions, How can Oracle 10g …