Ok, lets start this post with the standard disclaimer about my opinions being my own, and not those of MySQL AB. Why? Because there's controversy afoot.

So what's happening Mike?

Well, dear reader, MySQL AB has gone and added another platform to the list of platforms that we build binaries for. Users of that platform will not only find binaries for their platform, they will also get a trial subscription to MySQL Network to help them use their shiny new MySQL server!

That does not sound so bad, where's the controversy?

Well, depending on who you are, there may be no controversy at all. You see, a press release was made last Friday announcing that the platform in question is SCO Openserver 6.

This has produced a variety of responses, several interesting examples of which can be found …

An interesting story broke in the Financial Times (FT) last night while I was having dinner with a some journalists who cover open source technology.  The State of Massachussetts has not only been quite active in supporting and encouraging open source software, now they've introduced a directive that would require 50,000 desktop computers used by State employees to abandon Microsoft Office in favor of standard compliant alternatives such as Open Office and Star Office.  This is pretty bold step.  They don't want to be locked in to proprietary file formats.  From my discussions with other government IT organizations, it's a pretty common sentiment.  People are sick of the lock-in from closed source vendors and their hardball negotiation tactics.  So maybe Massachussetts is playing a little hardball of their own.  Good for them! 

There have been similar proposals and …

At LinuxWorld today, Novell kicked off some major new initiatives around their Linux distro SuSE.  Key among these is the announcement of OpenSuSE which enables anyone in the community to have access to early versions of SuSE in advance of the final deliveries.  This isn't a forking of SuSE or a different build, its just more visibility into the existing process that used to be done entirely behind closed doors.  This makes it easier for people to contribute to SuSE and test out the latest version while its still under development.  Hat's off to Novell for working closely with the community on this.

Novell also announced that they will be reselling MySQL Network, which is pretty cool and they also announced a new program called Market Start to promote several new open source startup companies including SugarCRM, Pentaho, Astaro, GroundWork, Lumen …

At Tony Perkins' AlwaysOn-Network conference today in Palo Alto there was a video interview with Skype CEO Niklas Zennström and their lead VC investor Tim Draper.  The interview is live over Skype's forthcoming video service.  If you haven't tried Skype and you need to call overseas, you should drop everythign, go to www.skype.com, download it and try it out.  Skype is an extremely scalable Voice Over IP solution (over 40 million active users) that makes phone calls on the network free (or nearly so). 

Like most hot startups, Skype is built on a completely open source infrastructure.  (That seems to be a common thread here at the AlwaysOn Conference.)  I got sick of Cingular's roaming charges of $1 - $2 a minute and $500 cellular phone bills …

The European patent directive and software patents in particular has now been laid to rest, at least for a few years.  One of the key people behind the fight against software patents has been Florian Mueller, a programmer and technical author in Germany.  Mueller became, in effect, an accidental lobbyist.  His conviction drove him to put his current programming project on hold in order to fight for what he believed in. Mueller created the nosoftwarepatents.com campaign, worked closely with companies such as MySQL, RedHat and others to generate awareness and then enlisted the help of the FFII in Europe to get even broader support.

Mueller wrote an interesting post-mortem editorial for the EU Observer, to provide a behind the scenes look at how the campaign worked.  Read the full …

Aah vacation, a time when married men spend 8 hours a day doing the whim of their wife instead of their company. My vacation started yesterday (or last Friday if you count the Canadian national holiday), and so far I have taken in a parade and done little else.

One thing I am working on is a time tracker tool for myself. I wanted something that was simple that I could develop as a practice project which would be of use to me:

In essence it will be a simple Open Source time tracker/punchclock tool. I am using VB.NET with MySQL 5, SQL trees for managing the project hierarchy, and a nice helping of views, stored procedures, and the like.

This should be handy for keeping track of what I do in a given week, where my time goes, and what I have accomplished. So far I can punch in and out of existing projects, and delete events that …

As you may recall, I have started a new project to create a new MySQL User Guide oriented at users who are new to SQL or who know SQL but are new to MySQL.

Well, I have a chapter on indexing done and I would love to have some people review it. Mainly I am looking for people who fit into the profile I just mentioned. The indexing chapter is only about 8 pages so it should not take too much time.

Please email mike (at) thisdomain if you are interested.

I’m starting a new project this week that has me really pumped. A coworker and I are starting work on a new User Guide for MySQL. The goal is to produce a companion for the MySQL Reference Manual that aims to provide a better introduction and overview instead of overwhelming detail.

This should be a nice resource for those users who find it difficult to find basic information in the rather large 1600 page reference manual.

The goal is that the User’s Guide would refer to the latest MySQL version rather than list all possible nuances of all versions of MySQL, but would link extensively to the reference manual for users looking for more detailed information.

For example, I am starting with the chapter on indexing. In the chapter I will not be mentioning b-trees, r-trees, or hash tables, but instead talking about INDEX, UNIQUE, PRIMARY, FULLTEXT, …