Matt Asay wrote an article about open source leakage. It’s quite good, and got me thinking.

First I thought, “Open source companies do not ‘lose’ revenue to non-paying customers, they just do not gain revenue from them.” But that’s based on the model of open-source software I have in my head that open source software usually starts out as a free, collaborative effort, and if enough folks get enough steam and come up with a business model (aka “a way to get paid”), then they form a company around the open source software.

Simplifying that model: open source software is free until it’s not.

Saying there is leakage does not do justice to the fact that the river flowed freely until the company came along and dammed up the river. Sure, maybe there’s a big leak, but there’s a lot more not leaking …

The Swag Report

I’ve posted more there, check it out. Some from the recent MySQL UC, some from linux.conf.au, some from wherever.

Greg Linden (Google watcher, search engine dude, ex-Amazon) saw Stewart Smith's talk on Google Video about MySQL cluster, and likes the idea. That's cool.

Time for more content on Google Video?

Tags for this post: mysql google video cluster
Related posts: MySQL cluster stores in RAM!; MySQL cluster stores in RAM!; …

So today we launched Google Trends. Wow. I first played with it earlier this week (that is, I wasn't on the team and didn't know it was coming out) and I was utterly blown away with it. My first reaction was "very cool" and my second reaction was "this is extremely powerful!" [1]

In effect, Google Trends lets you see how search traffic for a given term has changed over time. Even better, you can compare up to five different search terms to see how the popularity of things have changed over time. I'm amazed that this kind of tool is now available to the general public (for free, no less!). Obviously condensing a high volume of data into a small graph has some lossage, but this is a hugely fascinating source of information nonetheless.

For instance, a company near and dear to my heart made a strategic decision several years ago about one of their products. …

A friend from a large enterprise (buy side of open source) sent me an email today. I had asked for his opinion on how to improve the Open Source Business Conference, a show I and a few friends founded a few years back. He said something in the course of his email that I found very interesting, if difficult to deliver:

[You need to show] [h]ow to decide which OpenSource product is really cool and does what it says on the tin and which is vapourware\aspirational.

What Open Source products have my competitors used? Successfully. And unsuccessfully....

I like the panels - especially when they disagree. One of the things I find a bit discomfiting at conferences is when all the shiny, happy people on a panel agree...

... the core thing that I try and get through to my senior, senior management is the understanding that Open Source is NOT a panacea; is not totally free; …

http://tinyurl.com/gvwml

And the winner is….MySQL.

As much as I tried to get the video of the May Boston MySQL meetup captured, edited, and exported the night of the meetup it just didn't happen. I got close, had it captured and edited but exporting from DV to a compressed Quicktime takes many hours. Even on the Intel dual core it took almost 12 hours of both CPUs going full speed (hey, that's slower than my old PowerBook G4).

I started using audio from the lapel mic but unplugged it when the Q/A started (early in the presentation). The sound is much better from the lapel mic but if there is back and forth with the audience the video misses half the conversation. In my experience asking the presenter to repeat the question doesn't work, even if they remember to repeat (which they usually don't) you miss any back and forth and have gaps of silence.

Anyhow, the video is up on Google ( …

 On June 24th/25th, the Free and Open Source Software Conference (FrOSCon) will be held in Sankt Augustin, Germany. I have submitted two talks (in english), which both got accepted: "MySQL Administration: Backup and Security Strategies on Linux" and "The MySQL Business Model: Where and how we thrive". The sessions will take place on Saturday, but I will be around on Sunday, too. In addition to my sessions, there will be two more MySQL-related talks: "MySQL Cluster: an Introduction - A journey into High Availability" by Geert Vanderkelen (one of our MySQL Cluster Support experts) and "Pivot …

i finally saw someone make mention of the plugin that adds the load of awful crap to the end of some people?s blog entries which clutters things up on sites like planet mysql. it?s called ?better feed.?

clearly, ?better? is in the eye of the beholder. i find it to be an eyesore.

If you missed LinuxWorld Boston in early April, and more specifically the Golden Penguin Bowl where MySQL Nerds faced off against Oracle Geeks, you can now see it on Google video. Most of the video is spent showing the slides so don't expect to see a lot of the MySQL Nerds or Oracle Geeks in action.