It's nice to be able to make a difference.

Since David Axmark and I started to work on MySQL we also took a strong stand against software patents. MySQL AB have been sponsoring several efforts to prevent software patents in Europa.

Now David and I are continuing to do this outside of MySQL AB. We just gave an economic sponsorship to the Patent Lens, who recently lost their main sponsor, so that it can continue it's important work in making the patents system more accessible.

Here is a short description of Patent Lens from it's founder, Richard A Jefferson:


We are working to generalize the Patent Lens as the informatics platform of the Initiative for Open Innovation, which aspires to render worldwide patent systems …

Looks like the newest release of Firefox 3 is setting new records for downloads. Clearly there was a lot of pent-up demand for a revision. In their first day as a GA release, Firefox had more than , breaking all records. The downloads have continued at a rapid clip, with over 14 million within 72 hours. That's a pretty impressive feat for a product with essentially zero marketing budget. Firefox 3 adds a raft of new features, including beefed up security, more efficient use of memory as well as many minor usability tweaks. InfoWorld's test center put it through its... READ MORE

Here are my slides used for presentation at Red Hat Summit in Boston last week:

Zmanda: Open Source Backup (.odp open office format, 1.7MB)

Last week at the Red Hat Summit in Boston, Jaspersoft announced their new version 3 suite, aimed at taking the company beyond their namesake widely-used reporting system. This latest version focuses on ad-hoc BI with a more flexible "Web 2.0" AJAX interface making it easy to build dashboards via drag and drop. By creating metadata domains, the eliminate the need for users to understand the underlying database schemas and queries. You can also easily embed the dashboard in any web application. JasperSoft's latest update appears to be a significant improvement in making open source BI offerings more competitive in the... READ MORE

Removing Barriers to the Community - MySQL Moves to Bazaar - Jay Pipes It is the role of a community manager to remove the barriers — both technical and ideological — between the user/developer community and the company or group of individuals which produces the open source software

Linux.com :: Lessons learned from NCSU FOSS class As textbooks, [...]

After 4 good releases, Ubuntu let me down with 8.04. Maybe it was the timing - I upgraded my laptop as part of restoring it from a hard drive crash a few weeks ago - but isn't a brand new disk a good time to change your OS version? 

 On the upside, Hardy was the first OS I've installed where I opted to keep the default wallpaper (the bird is purty). And I'm pretty sure suspend (nVidia driver and all) was working better than previously, which is always good news. 

But I no longer had use of the VGA port for cloned or extended desktop, and I was unable to find a solution. That's a dealbreaker for anyone who needs to do frequent presentations (or, for that matter, uses their laptop as a primary workstation and has a > 15" monitor).

Worse, vpnc was, at best, squirrelly. I do quite a lot over VPN, and we still have two of them (Sun & MySQL). My sunray solves …

After 4 good releases, Ubuntu let me down with 8.04. Maybe it was the timing – I upgraded my laptop as part of restoring it from a hard drive crash a few weeks ago – but isn’t a brand new disk a good time to change your OS version? 

 On the upside, Hardy was the first OS I’ve installed where I opted to keep the default wallpaper (the bird is purty). And I’m pretty sure suspend (nVidia driver and all) was working better than previously, which is always good news. 

But I no longer had use of the VGA port for cloned or extended desktop, and I was unable to find a solution. That’s a dealbreaker for anyone who needs to do frequent presentations (or, for that matter, uses their laptop as a primary workstation and has a > 15" monitor).

Worse, vpnc was, at best, squirrelly. I do quite a lot over VPN, and we still have two of them (Sun & MySQL). My sunray solves half of that problem for me, but until …

I've been at MySQL for two and a half years now as a community manager. Through this time, I've learned a number of valuable lessons about what it means to be a community manager, what it means to belong to a community of technologists, and what it means to be an open source advocate. I think back now on the attitude and preconceptions I brought with me when I joined MySQL, and reflect about the changes in my own attitude that have happened.

One of the biggest "aha" moments I have had in the past three years is the following:

It is the role of a community manager to remove the barriers — both technical and ideological — between the user/developer community and the company or group of individuals which produces the open source software

Some barriers are small. Sometimes these barriers can be overcome by a simple email to an annoyed community member who has misunderstood a poorly communicated …

After 4 good releases, Ubuntu let me down with 8.04. Maybe it was the timing - I upgraded my laptop as part of restoring it from a hard drive crash a few weeks ago - but isn't a brand new disk a good time to change your OS version? 

 On the upside, Hardy was the first OS I've installed where I opted to keep the default wallpaper (the bird is purty). And I'm pretty sure suspend (nVidia driver and all) was working better than previously, which is always good news. 

But I no longer had use of the VGA port for cloned or extended desktop, and I was unable to find a solution. That's a dealbreaker for anyone who needs to do frequent presentations (or, for that matter, uses their laptop as a primary workstation and has a > 15" monitor).

Worse, vpnc was, at best, squirrelly. I do quite a lot over VPN, and we still have two of them (Sun & MySQL). My sunray solves …

After 4 good releases, Ubuntu let me down with 8.04. Maybe it was the timing - I upgraded my laptop as part of restoring it from a hard drive crash a few weeks ago - but isn't a brand new disk a good time to change your OS version? 

 On the upside, Hardy was the first OS I've installed where I opted to keep the default wallpaper (the bird is purty). And I'm pretty sure suspend (nVidia driver and all) was working better than previously, which is always good news. 

But I no longer had use of the VGA port for cloned or extended desktop, and I was unable to find a solution. That's a dealbreaker for anyone who needs to do frequent presentations (or, for that matter, uses their laptop as a primary workstation and has a > 15" monitor).

Worse, vpnc was, at best, squirrelly. I do quite a lot over VPN, and we still have two of them (Sun & MySQL). My sunray solves …