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• EasyORM - "EasyORM is an object-relational mapping tool for users of PHP and MySQL."
  
  
• DaDaBik - "DaDaBIK is a DataBase Interfaces Kreator". For PHP.
  
  
• Metastorage generator - "Metastorage is an application that is capable of generating persistence layer APIs." Available for PHP.
  
  
• Metakit - "Metakit is an efficient embedded database library with a small footprint. It fills the gap between flat-file, relational, object-oriented, and tree-structured databases, supporting relational joins, serialization, nested structures, and instant schema evolution." C++, Python, Tcl.
  
  
• CodeCharge - Code generator for database web sites.
  
  
• Link from hotscripts PHP database tools section: AppGini - "AppGini creates your MySQL database and all the PHP scripts you need to manage data."
  
  
• eSKUeL, phpMyAdmin - Web-based MySQL administration.
  
  

Please remember that simply *having* a monopoly is perfectly legal. It's the leveraging of that monopoly to destroy competitors, or capture other markets that is illegal.

This finding of facts only demonstrates that yes, MS is a monopoly. A fact that hasn't been in (serious) dispute for a long time. The judge still has to rule on whether MicroSoft actually broke any laws, and if so, what remedy will be enacted.

While I support remedies to the MicroSoft monopoly because I am convinced they have acted illegally, I think simply "breaking them up" would be disasterous. At least, depending on how it was done.

Break them up along product lines:
Pros:
-Simple.
-May reduce their ability to leverage their monpoly.
Cons:
-Totally ineffective in breaking their monopoly.

Break them up into mirror companies with access to the same initial codebases:
Pros:
-Potentially obviates their monopoly
Cons:
-Doesn't help other competitors such as Linux
-May create market confusion with different, increasingly incompatible versions of Windows

And the other remedies proposed:

Force them to release the source to Windows in a timely and consistent fashion:
Pros:
-Gives "real" competitors such as Linux the ability to interoperate, and thus compete.
Cons:
-Goes against the ideas of capitalism, makes a mockery of intellectual property laws, and generally panics the tech industry.
-Doesn't actually nullify their monopoly.

Force them to release detailed, accurate, timely, advance specs to Office file formats:
Pros:
-100% Interoperability with MS Office would eliminate one of the biggest hurdles keeping Linux off of corporate desktops. (usability is something we can take care of without the DOJ's help... :>)
-Helps competitors
-Makes the playing field truly merit-based
Cons:
-Doesn't directly nullify their monopoly
-Probably not possible since the question of Office was never raised as an issue...

Personally, I favor the last option. I'd like to see Linux be able to compete on it's merits rather than against it's flaws. (Subtle difference)

(Support Livid and Linux DVD Movie support -- http://www.mrjoy.com/protest.html for more info)

Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

I have posted a letter of protest at:
http://www.mrjoy.com/protest.html

It needs work, and I don't know where it needs to get sent, but that information *will* be added as I get it. Suggestions welcome!

Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

Ouch! This is going to be Yet Another Long Drawn Out Legal Bloodbath.

My question is: what are they alleging? Copyright infringement? Of what? The key? It certainly can't be the actual decryption software...

I'm sure that in the long run, the authors will be OK... The industry groups will probably eventually back off... But in the meantime, they are in for a serious storm...

So, who do we protest to? What industry groups? Has anyone bothered to come up with a form "Letter of Protest"?

Say, that's an idea! I'll have a "Letter of Protest" on my site for those who are interested within a few minutes... :)

Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

<>

I'm afraid not. I've used the Ricochet before, and just like a cellular phone, the bandwidth you get is highly dependent upon local coverage. If you are on the outer-edge of the maximal distance from a transceiver, you get poor bandwidth, aggravated by poor latency. It's quite easy to get less than 28.8K bandwidth.
Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

You and your high school buddies had cell phones?

Sheesh...

You shouldn't be surprised though... Analog cell phones just have really pathetic potential bandwidth... The fastest I've ever seen anyone claim is 9600BPS under optimal conditions... That was the Nokia 9000 cell phone/PDA unit...

I'm not sure how the various digital standards hold up though... Or satelite...

Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

In theory, Ricochet should work just peachy, although I've never tried it...

It connects to a serial port, and "looks like" a modem... All you need is PPP software... Even the Palm Pilot supports it (with an adaptor for the cable...)

http://www.ricochet.net

The biggest drawbacks being performance (about 33.6K on a good day, although they promise 128K soon...) and availability... Only certain areas (like the bay area) support it...


Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

In the long run, making your site accessible to those with disabilities is a Good Thing.

My concern right now however, is the "cost" of doing so. And it isn't just money:
1) There are not adequate technical standards for making a web site "accessible". Anyone who tries is basically rolling their own.

2) Because of adequate technical standards and guidelines, often one must compromise the visual quality of a site in order to make it accessible. (No FONT tags, limited use of tables, no frames, limited use of CSS, limited use of images...)

3) Then there is the time and money overhead. In the Internet world, what company can afford to hire specialists that know how to do all this, and can afford the time to let them fix up an existing site, or add overhead to the development of a new site?

Rather than filing a lawsuit, I'd rather the ADA assisted the W3 define some extensions to HTML to help with the issue. Or perhaps, at minimum, an XML language to define accessible content, or for describing how to interpret a site...

Imagine an XML language that let's you define how your site works, and how to understand it... Then create a file in root called blind.xml... You'd probably need to mark up your HTML a bit with naming tags as points-of-reference for the browser to use in correlating the XML description with the HTML... But I think such a thing has a lot of potential. It could overcome the need for the major browsers to implement a new HTML spec... And tools to support it would be fairly easy to make...


Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

While they don't offer Braille, their books are easily readable by OCR-type devices designed for the blind.


Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

To an extent, this is already dealt with in the form of domain-specific repositories like CPAN for Perl...

I hereby volunteer to set up such a thing for Mason components... Easier than for C++ since Mason is innately component-based... :)

I had already planned on distributing Mason components on my site -- those that I developed at least... I think it works well to expand that idea...

Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

[[Sure, it's easier to use Perl than a lower level language]]
"Easier" is really not the right word. It's:
-Faster. (time to market!)
-More maintainable (1,000 lines of mediocre Perl code is easier to maintain than 20,000 lines of good C++ code)
-More flexible. (Shorter turnaround time on new features)


[[but programs would be more efficient if C/C++ were used.]]
You're talking about an environment that adds MASSIVE overhead already. (HTTP) Several seconds of latency between you and the user is not uncommon.

Now, let's also consider where most web apps spend their time... If you are using mod_perl, most of your time is *not* based in Perl. It's in your database, or waiting for I/O.

If you aren't using mod_perl, then you add the overhead of spawning a process, loading the Perl interpreter, loading and parsing your code, and then you go to execute it. (where most of the time is spent in the database, or waiting for I/O)

We have a VERY complicated web application (>70,000 lines of Perl) where I work. A web based e-mail system with a pluggable user interface.

Our "main" page (where you view the contents of a folder) uses at least 15,000 lines of that code via libraries and such...

It also takes less than half a second to come up. Why? With mod_perl, the overhead of having a huge codebase goes away. And we've got it down to 1 SQL query. Our biggest performance hindrance was when it used multiple database queries. But it's much better now. :)


[[when one wouldn't use one for other programs?]]
Other programs aren't developed on Internet time. At my last startup, I learned one painful lesson: Time to market is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING. It doesn't matter how cool your idea is, or how cool your implementation is, if you have half a dozen better funded competitors. Their products could suck but with more money than you for marketing, they're gonna win.


[[did I make the correct assumption?"]]
If you aren't in a startup, then that is entirely up to you. If you are in a startup, I'd bet money that it is the wrong decision.
Jon Frisby, Sr. Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

Pacman eh? If it supports curved surfaces that could be pretty wicked... But they'd have to be non-rational curves or Pacman wouldn't be *quite* spherical...


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

Well, at worst it will be "Quake with a different look and higher specs..." but it potentially could be more...

Xatrix has a history of making interesting games, and Kingpin pushes the edge with it's A.I. and gameplay...

Potentially this could be the Next Big Thing... Or it could be a big flop.


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

I'd like to see an overhead version too, but few overhead games done in 3D don't tend to work out so well... If you have a fixed camera angle, you undoubtedly have to screw it up with level geometry that passes over the character's head, thus obscuring the view... :)

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

I disagree...

Using the Wolf engine wouldn't make the game fun, or even have significant nostalgic benefit. It would simply be a hindrance.

I think what would accomplish what you want, is if the engine they used, the art they came up with, and the game mechanics all preserved a distinctly "Wolf" feel... Then you get the best of both worlds... But that is a very hard thing to pull off...

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

If it was a "cheap ripoff", it wouldn't bear the Wolfenstein name, which I'm sure is trademarked...

Hasn't Carmack talked of letting outside developers contuing the Doom line with a "Doom 2000"? If he's amenable to that, I see no reason why he wouldn't be amenable to an external Wolf 2K...


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

$5K OGL dev kit? That's news to me! To me it seems Be has done everything to encourage development...

It may be a mutually beneficial thing to let Be do the port however... Be benefits by having more "cool apps" to lure users, and one more way to show off how cool BeOS is to the media...

Xatrix benefits by getting increased exposure, free cleanup work on making the code portable (useful if they want to do other ports like Linux or Mac), and free revenue -- they don't do the work...


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

The Wolfenstein storyline was pretty slim to begin with. Really it was about as well developed as Doom's storyline (or is that backwards... :>) -- which is to say it was "run around and kill (x)" where "x" is Nazis in this case.

Ok, so Wolfenstein 3D doesn't have a rich storyline to offer. Then what exactly does this game bring to the table? Q3A and UT have DeathMatch locked down, Kingpin, and Half-Life have rich single-player locked down...

Perhaps there is room for an "old-school" kill-fest but it will have to be as visceral and cutting edge as Wolfenstein was in it's day...


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

<>
I think in the case of small companies it's more a matter of blind copying. Most of the employment agreement from my last company (a startup I cofounded) was just taken from employment agreements the CEO had been subjected to in previous jobs...

<<My current company actually doesn't have a non-competition clause, even though they loose a lot of people to competitors.>>
Sounds like your present company is run by people who are in it for "the love of the game" as it were... More motivated by developing cool stuff than by profit motive?



Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

This is undoubtedly what they mean. I just thought it was kinda funny how they made it sound like it was the end of the world: "horrific scenes of teenage sex"! LOL!


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

<>
Really? That's odd then... I've had several employers -- from book stores where I was a sales associate to software companies -- that had lengthy non-compete clauses. And I am firmly planted in Silicon Valley!

I guess someone needs to tell them that these clauses are a joke... :)


<<Using the speed of technological change as an argument against them is novel, and I'm not sure how happy I am with that. It would be far better to strike down non-competion clauses completely. >>
Yes, if the argument is that an entire year is just too long, then companies will make it 3 months. That is more reasonable after all -- within 3 months, their IP becomes essentially worthless externally. Time to market is everything. But that doesn't obsolete the engineer... :)



Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

(if they could synch with that Apple AirPort thing, then THAT would be cookin' with gas!)>>

For an individual, the needs will be unique, but what I meant was to build broad consumer confidence. The Pilot is still something that the vast majority of people feel they "don't need", or "just isn't useful enough".

Now, you tell them "you use Quicken right? the Pilot works with Quicken!" or "You play SimCity right? You can play it on the Pilot!" and it starts looking just a tad more useful or worthwhile.

If you had a hundreds apps that people *recognize* then it starts to look much more compelling. Most consumers don't realize the potential of the Pilot...

-JF

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

At my previous company, we named our machines after great writers (preferrably dead).

My workstation was Asimov. Development server was Dickens. Production server was Burroughs. For a while, our office router was Shakespeare. The list goes on and on... :)

My current company names machines eon1, eon2, etc... With aliases for unusual female names (lola, farrah, etc...)

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

Naturally the online ordering system has been SlashDotted, or is otherwise unavailable... *sigh*...

-JF

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

I'm off to buy it now... I'm only concerned with performance... Is it going to be slow as a dog, or stay at the pace of the original? Their animated screenshots would seem to indicate the latter but that doesn't say much.

I think this is a really good thing for the Palm. What the Palm needs are some "brand name" recognizable apps... It has very few recognizable brands or programs avilable for it.

That isn't to say there aren't any *good* apps, I mean, of course there are, but it lends yet more credibility to the system to have this on it. Quicken is the only other example of a recognizable brand/product on the Palm...

And let's not forget that this will demonstrate the Palm's true potential as a portable gaming platform... Even if the controls are unsuitable for MegaMan... :)

That's an idea! An attachment that provides GameBoy style controls which map to the basic buttons... Perhaps calc/menu can be the mappings for start/select? Add a gameboy emulator, or some game ports, and there ya go! :)

-JF

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

<>

From what I understand, the risk is actually quite minor... Thankfully though I don't need it... The thought of someone peeling back part of my eye is just sickening!

My mom is considering it though... Time or Newsweek or some such had an article about it that covered the procedure and the risks quite well..

Apparently quite a few people need follow up surgery to correct what are essentially imprecisions of the first procedure, but very few have severe outcomes...


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

If it's "pre-diluted", that would make it an indefensible trademark, would it not?

Trademarks are only allowed to be terms not in general usage -- thus I cannot trademark "car" and make demands upon everyone who uses the term...

-JF

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

>I wonder if they've heard of the Fair Use
>principle? Or maybe parody?

Everyone seems to be confusing copyright and trademark law! Repeat after me: COPYRIGHT LAW and TRADEMARK LAW are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

"Fair Use" does not apply to trademark law. Not being a lawyer, I cannot say for sure whether or not parody is allowed and what the requirements are if it is.
Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

Does sarcasm alone constitute parody?

If so, then I think Slashdot is safe...



Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

>copyright

It's a trademark, not a copyright but you are exactly right. :)

A trademark can go bye-bye if it is abused. A copyright can not.

A copyright can only become void if the owner places something in the public domain, or the copyright expires. (which happens after 75 years IIRC)

-JF
Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

He needs to be polite. Not to kiss their heinies.

Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be: "That message is really nothing more than a suggestion that IDG publish a '...for Dummies' book on the topic of Sendmail. This was not meant to dilute your trademark, rather it was a specific request for a book in your series."


Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)

>Reason: Lawyers don't like to be insulted.
>Although others feel they would not be nearly
>as polite, I caution you to be even more so.
>Both security and lawyers DO NOT have a sense
>of humor.

"Do not trifle with wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger"?

(all trademarks, copyrights, etc are the property of their respective owners, yada yada yada...)

Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)