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Stories and comments across the archive that link to sun.com.

Comments · 7,362

  1. OOXML, ODF, and FUD by SEMW · · Score: 2, Insightful · on Microsoft Standing Firm On OOXML ISO Vote
    You make some good points, but some rather bad ones.

    1. There is already an ISO standard for this same purpose. Since, clearly, different competing standards are bad. Which is why there is only one standard type of screw drive head, Flathead. I once heard someone claim that there were other standards, such as Philips (better for automated assembly) and Pozidriv (allows latge torque without gouging the screw); but I reckon they were lying. I mean, how could competition possibly be better than one standard having a monopoly? Everyone knows how good monopolies are.

    4. OOXML is technically very inferior to the existing standard, ISO 26300. For example, OOXML specifies three different implementations of "a table", instead of just one common to different Office applications. This means that you cannot write a "table handling class" as a library, but instead you have to duplicate equivalent functionality several times over. You cite one example where ODF is apparently better than OOXML. And indeed, Wikipedia cites several technical advantages of both ODF over OOXML and, conversely, OOXML over ODF. For example, ODF apparently has only a weakly defined formula syntax, inhibiting ODF spreadsheet implementations based only on the spec (supposedly most implementors just use whatever de facto syntax OO.org decides on). To claim that one format is universally hailed as technically "very inferior" is rather misleading at best.

    6. OOXML is controlled by just one corporation ... ISO 26300 belongs to ISO. That's a circular argument. It shouldn't be an ISO standard because it currently isn't an ISO standard?! (Granted, aspects of the canonical implementation will probably de fact be decided by what MS Office does, but then the same applies to ODF and OO.o -- see previous item...)

    8. ISO 26300 even works with Microsoft Office (up to Office 2003) using a free plugin written by Sun. Microsoft deliberately broke Office 2007 file filters so that this plugin (or any other plugin not written by Microsoft) would not work in Office 2007 That is just plain wrong, and FUD to boot. Not only does a 10 second Google search show that the Sun plugin does support Office 2007, but Microsoft apparently also sponsored their own open-source ODF add-in (hosted on Sourcefourge) for Office, which also supports Office 2007 (& below).

    10. It makes no sense to have "choice in standards" How is this different from your first point? Anyway, see my response to that.
  2. Re:I've Heard of That Machine! by ksheff · · Score: 1 · on Where Are Tomorrow's Embedded Developers?

    Like these? http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1997-10/sunflash.971015.1.xml

  3. Re:Does it bring back the "Windows Shade"? by misleb · · Score: 1 · on Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update Brings Welcome Fixes

    Trust me, I'm not the only one notice this problem with Spaces. A ticket was filed a long time ago. See Bug ID# 5610888

    Also see this blog:

    http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/why_apple_spaces_is_broken#comments

    Basically Apple concluded that they "couldn't reproduce the issue" and have apparently dropped the issue. Looks like the functionality of Spaces is pretty much set in stone at this point. At least in Leopard. It would need a major functional overhaul to fix, IMO. We'll just have to rely on third party pagers. Last I checked there was at least one in Beta. I'll have to look again.

    -matthew

  4. Re:kvm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Ubuntu Picks Upstart, KVM

    Since Sun is now working on acquiring Innotek things should get interesting.

  5. Re:Sun is working on it by jfim · · Score: 1 · on Making Use of Terabytes of Unused Storage

    Sorry, here's a better link about Project Celeste.

  6. Sun is working on it by jfim · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Making Use of Terabytes of Unused Storage

    Project Celeste is basically what the OP is talking about. It's a distributed filesystem with automatic replication, handles rogue nodes via voting and also exports the "filesystem" as CIFS. It's essentially a distributed object store, which can be used to implement a filesystem on top of it. I saw a demo of it last year and I was pretty surprised, it seems to work quite well for a research project.

  7. Re:"How will you use XML in years to come?" by dkf · · Score: 3, Insightful · on The Future of XML

    My problems with JSON are:
    • No schema: XML Schema not only makes it easier to unit test, but it can be fed into tools that can do useful things like automatic creation of Java classes and code to read/write. Does JSON have anything like that? Of course not, because it would defeat JSON's purpose: easy Javascript data transmission.
    While I hate XML Schema, it's still better for many uses than just throwing random crap on the wire and hoping that the other end can make sense of it. And no, throwing some javascript on the wire as well doesn't help that much. I want the computer to do stuff with the data without having to ship a program specifically for the purpose; after all, I can't think of all the purposes for the data right now and I want to let others come up with new cool stuff too.

    • XPath. 'Nuff said. Ok, one thing: this should have replaced SAX/DOM years ago.
    I use a DOM library that includes XPath support so that I can simply do a search starting at any node. It makes working with DOM much more pleasant.

    I hate it when humans have to write XML to configure something though. That really ticks me off. Simpler stuff works quite well when you've got configuration of software from a single vendor, but when you've got to combine stuff from lots of sources, XML stops being quite such a bad choice. (If only people who edit config files would actually demonstrate an ability to write well-formed XML though. Idiots...)
  8. Re:"How will you use XML in years to come?" by MagikSlinger · · Score: 5, Insightful · on The Future of XML

    JSON is inflicting Javascript on everyone.

    No, it really doesn't, but if "JavaScript" in the name bothers you, you might feel better with YAML.

    No, it wouldn't because JSON is bare bones data. It's simply nested hash tables, arrays and strings. XML does much more than that. XML can represent a lot of information in a simple, easy-to-understand format. JSON strips it out for speed & efficiency. Which sort of gets into the point I did want to make but was too impatient to explain: JSON is good where JSON is best, and XML is good where XML is best. I dislike the one-uber-alles arguments because it's ignoring other situations and their needs.

    There are other programming languages out there.

    And there are JSON and/or YAML libraries for quite a lot of them. So what?

    Would you like to live in a world of S-expressions? The LISP people would point out there are libraries to read/write S-expressions, so why use JSON? The answer of course is that we want more than simply nesting lists of strings. We want our markup languages to fit our requirements, not the other way around. And saying "JSON for Everything", which the original poster did was... silly.

    My problems with JSON are:

    • No schema: XML Schema not only makes it easier to unit test, but it can be fed into tools that can do useful things like automatic creation of Java classes and code to read/write. Does JSON have anything like that? Of course not, because it would defeat JSON's purpose: easy Javascript data transmission.
    • Expressability: With XML, I can create a model that fits my logical model of the data where I use attributes to augment the data in the child elements. Doing that in JSON is a kludge with a hash-table to represent an element which can't be easily converted into a graph for easy understanding.
    • Diversity: I use GML in my day job. A lot. I can easily set up an object conversion rule with Jakarta Digester that I can painlessly drop into future projects without modification. That's the power of namespaces. I can build an XML document using tags from a dozen different schema, and then feed it to another application that only looks for the tags it cares about.
    • XPath. 'Nuff said. Ok, one thing: this should have replaced SAX/DOM years ago.

    JSON is great for AJAX where XML is clunky and a little bit slower (my own speed tests hasn't shown there's a huge hit, but it is significant). XML is great for document-type data like formatted documents or electronic data interchange between heavy-weight processes. My point was that the original poster's JSON is everything was narrow-minded, and that XML answers a very specific need. There are tonnes of mark-up languages out there, and I think XML is a great machine-based language. I hate it when humans have to write XML to configure something though. That really ticks me off. But that's the point: there should not be one mark-up language to rule them all. A mark-up language for every purpose.

  9. Re:Blashphemy ! by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1 · on 111 Years Ago, Indiana Almost Legislated Pi

    Computer Programmer: Pi is 3.141592653589 in double precision.

    For double precision, you need 17 decimal digits to represent an arbitrary number uniquely in binary. Of course, good programmers will use M_PI, but I've seen many instances of "3.14159". I'm still looking for someone to use "22/7" (note: integer division).

  10. Re:we've come a long way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on IBM Slams Microsoft, Calls OOXML "Inferior"

    IBM's agenda is to push Symphony and Lotus Notes into more enterprises. It's no good will intended, just way to get a stronghold on customers instead of Microsoft. Personally I think Microsoft is better, but that's a personal opinion. So what if they push Symphony? It uses ODF as it's default format. If you don't like Symphony, you can use OpenOffice. If you don't like OpenOffice you can use MS Office with Sun's ODF plugin. If IBM is pushing open standards, they should be supported in that. It benefits everyone, not just IBM. Microsoft is using a semi-open format to maintain vendor lock-in. That only benefits Microsoft.
  11. Re:That's right, Linus... by LionMage · · Score: 1 · on Torvalds Says Microsoft is Bluffing on Patents

    And it wasn't, until one of the programmers who made GNU/Linux viable in the first place by reverse engineering the SMB protocols, Tridge, tried to reverse engineer BitKeeper to try to create a free software version, something he had every right to do given he wasn't bound by the license.

    Just one point of clarification: Tridge wasn't creating a free software version of BitKeeper, he was creating a tool to extract code out of the BitKeeper repository, thereby "freeing" the code. (In the sense that you needed to pay for a BitKeeper license to access the Linux kernel code at one point in time, which IMHO is a major problem for an OpenSource project.) It took a little bit of searching, but I found this article which confirms this version of events; more info at this blog post, and this one, plus old Slashdot coverage of Tridge's SourcePuller app.

    As for Linus heaping scorn on Tridge... some of that was because Linus was good friends with Larry McVoy. Or at least, that's what got reported in the popular press.
  12. Re:Implications for open source by Ilgaz · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion For Yahoo

    A few weeks ago a MS office opened in a small office park in Boulder CO (38th and Araphoe area). Then they put a large semi-trailer sized white box in the parking lot. They then put eight large air condition units on top the white box. Looks like an instant data center to me...

    Anyone else seen one of these suddenly appear? If it is a small do-it-yourself datacenter, it is another example of them not going with "already invented" thing.

    If Yahoo (with current management) needed such thing, they would call Sun to lease/buy one of these: http://www.sun.com/products/sunmd/s20/index.jsp . As MS is allergic to that giant Sun Logo and they would fire the first sane guy suggesting "Solaris" ... You get the deal.

  13. Re:Python takes a step backwards. by Ambidisastrous · · Score: 1 · on Python 3.0 To Be Backwards Incompatible

    The approach to parameter typing (optional and unenforced) is silly. Having it and not enforcing it is just asking for trouble.

    Python allows all these things, which can occasionally be useful. The trouble is that it's really tough to tell at compile time if the hard cases are going to be needed, and thus code has to be pessimized for the worst case. I think the language you're looking for is here.

    It's not optional parameter typing, it's parameter annotation. Libraries can figure out something useful to do with them, e.g. documentation generators or FFIs, but the language by default doesn't care. Usually the annotations won't be used. Declared types are certainly not the way Python intends to go.

    * Classes which can be dynamically modified from outside themselves should be subclasses of "dynamicobject" instead of "object". This makes everything dynamic but reduces performance. For most objects, the compiler can then find all the variables during compilation, assign them fixed slots, and avoid having a dictionary in each object. If an object indulges in self-modification or attribute creation, the compiler can see that at compile time and generate the slow code for the hard case. This is only needed for objects which are patched from outside themselves, something the compiler can't now detect and needs to know about. Prior to Python 2.2 (I think), there were "classic-style" classes that were, well, just ordinary classes. Dynamic structures. Python then introduced "new-style" classes that all implicitly derived from object. We've known since Smalltalk that it's useful for "everything" to be "an object", but Python didn't get around to implementing that properly until to 2.x series, and then had to keep old-style classes around for compatibility. Python 3.0 finally gets it right and eliminates old-style classes, so everything will in fact be an object. What you're looking for is something like "Object" and "StaticObject". So if you happen to derive from a StaticObject instead of an Object, you'll be surprised to find you're limited in the things you can do, and your options are to hack a dictionary onto your new object, or reimplement the parent class as an Object. Eventually you clue up and rewrite everything as an Object. The whole motivation of dynamically typed languages is that flexibility beats performance.

    The point of monkeypatching is that the original class definition didn't expect to be modified. So, why would expect that the author knows when deriving from Object is necessary instead of DynamicObject? It's the fragile base class problem, squared.

    * Variables cannot change major type during execution. If a variable is initialized with an integer or float value, it cannot thereafter be changed to an object type. Shed Skin imposes this restriction, which means it doesn't have to "box" numbers in objects and can hard-compile arithmetic. Or you could take the approach that variables don't have types; values do. In which case the restriction is silly. Common Lisp takes this approach, and programs compiled with SBCL are about the same speed as Java.

    This would make it possible to boost Python performance up to the Java level, and get it within striking distance of C/C++, yet not require declarations. I think the language you're looking for is here.
  14. Re:Java's Mistakes by julesh · · Score: 1 · on Python 3.0 To Be Backwards Incompatible

    Java introduced Generics, but still returns Object from Generic Collections for backwards compatibility.

    Huh? As far as I can see, List.get() (for example) returns E.

  15. Re:Nothing wrong by znerk · · Score: 1 · on Time for a Vista Do-Over?

    For a fee they (Microsoft) will certainly _support_ the software, which is not something you're going to get with a "free" download of Linux. Actually, Ubuntu has something along the same lines... you can access a variety of support options, including purchasing support from Canonical Ltd..

    Similarly, OpenOffice has many support options, including commercial support provided by Sun Microsystems.
  16. Re:Microsoft has given everyone a bad name. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Windows Vista Annoyances

    Oh, so I guess nobody else's shit stinks, right?

  17. Re:Why should this be a surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Can Sun Make MySQL Pay?

    That is what OpenSolaris WebStack is doing. Every thing preconfigured and out of the box. and yes Sun does make a commercial JSP container shared by Application server and Web Server disc:IWFS

  18. Re:I didn't go to business school, but... by Lally+Singh · · Score: 4, Informative · on Can Sun Make MySQL Pay?
    Quoting Schwartz's blog:

    Where are the revenue synergies?

    The more interesting question is "where aren't the synergies?" Wherever MySQL is deployed, whether the user is paying for software support or not, a server will be purchased, along with a storage device, networking infrastructure - and over time, support services on high value open platforms. Last I checked, we have products in almost all those categories.



    In addition, the single biggest impediment to MySQL's growth wasn't the feature set of their technology - which is perfectly married to planetary scale in the on-line/web world. The biggest impediment was that some traditional enterprises wanted a Fortune 500 vendor ("someone in a Gartner magic quadrant") to provide enterprise support. Good news, we can augment MySQL's great service team with an extraordinary set of service professionals across the planet - and provide global mission critical support to the biggest businesses on earth.




    So yeah, he's got an idea for the answer, but the author of the TFA knew he didn't have a story if he had read the entire blog entry :-P

    I think the idea that people will go "hey, that sun mysql worked out pretty well for us. let's go over to sun.com and see what else they have." isn't a bad one. I think the real kicker will be support. Have some random problem in mysql that's killing you? Pay for an incident with Sun support, and the customer could be well satisfied with what they get back. They like the idea of having a vendor that will actually fix things for you, and suddenly you look at other stuff sun sells that you could get support for.

    To put it in perspective, I've got a sun desktop machine (nothing fancy, an amd box that was a lot cheaper than my macbook pro) and it was getting a harmless error message. I put in a support call to sun. Until the issue's fixed (they want me to upgrade the firmware), they've been stalking me to track the ticket. E-mails and voicemail messages ("Did you get a chance to upgrade that firmware yet?") more often than you'd get from a real-life stalker. These kids don't screw around with support. I'm kind of afraid of them for that.

    But I'm sure that if you have a problem that's important, you'll appreciate the dedication.

    I'm sure there's a lot to be said about companies trusting mysql more now that a big company like sun's behind them, but I'm still in academia, so I donno how much of a factor that is. Probably lots.

  19. Simple: Niagara by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Can Sun Make MySQL Pay?

    How can Sun sell enough hardware to justify this purchase? What if they have a platform that (should a major database vendor optimize their implementation for that platform) has a significant advantage over any other platform?

    Databases are one of the most common applications that need lots and lots of concurrent threads.

    And Sun has a unique platform that provides that support: Niagara Optimizations for MySQL and a list of other cases in Sun's performance contest

  20. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure by eremos · · Score: 0 · on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night?

    Use thin clients that draw minimal power and host desktops on the server side, either using an OS instance on the server for each user, or a terminal server type setup. Sun's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure initiatives are great for this. Virtual machines can be suspended when not in use and are trivial to bring back online. Added bonus: Users can work from off-site with minimal effort.

  21. Re:About Parrot .. by cgaertner · · Score: 1 · on perl6 and Parrot 0.5.2 Released

    There is nothing magic about what C or C++ does when it utilizes shared memory for dynamically linked libraries. Your assertion that Java or C# cannot do this strikes me as incorrect, although I'm not sure if any VMs actually make use of such a thing or not. Googl says IBM has been doing something like this at least since 2004. Sun's VM supports class data sharing since version 1.5: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/vm/class-data-sharing.html
  22. Re:Programming is different by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Followup On Java As "Damaging" To Students

    One of the selling points of PHP is that one *can* fairly easily make libraries for it in C if need be...Java didn't take this approach and it may cost them in the longer run.
    WRONG WRONG WRONG
    JavaTM Native Interface (JNI) is a standard programming interface for writing Java native methods and embedding the JavaTM virtual machine* into native applications. The primary goal is binary compatibility of native method libraries across all Java virtual machine implementations on a given platform.

    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/jni/index.html

    The parent post even mentions it.
  23. Re:Sun Ray by amirulbahr · · Score: 1 · on How Would You Make a Distributed Office System?

    The impression I got was relatively small branch offices. With a 100 devices or more you'd certainly want either local servers or a big fat (expensive) link to your data centre. Can't see how that would be avoidable.

    As for Sun Ray, Linux is supported for running the server software, and proxying RDP seamlessly is straightforward AND supported.

  24. Re:Sun Ray by amirulbahr · · Score: 1 · on How Would You Make a Distributed Office System?

    The impression I got was relatively small branch offices. With a 100 devices or more you'd certainly want either local servers or a big fat (expensive) link to your data centre. Can't see how that would be avoidable.

    As for Sun Ray, Linux is supported for running the server software, and proxying RDP seamlessly is straightforward AND supported.

  25. Re:"dying breed"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful · on Command Line Life Partner Wanted

    "but I prefer the eloquence and expressiveness of the command line."

    Wow, that's some mighty fine B.S. you've got there. How do you deal with the smell?

    Let's be serious; there isn't anyting special about a command line and refering to GUI based tools as being akin to cavement grunting and pointing is pretty darn retarded. Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.

    If you prefer to use a text-based debugger; hey, great for you. Every professional programmer I've met who uses command line tools over GUI tools does it because they are working in an environment that lacks quality GUI tools (or because you really think it makes you 'l33t' - but that's really about as toolish of an attitude as I can imagine). How many Java/.Net developers do you who would choose a cmd window over something like Visual Studio? I've met zero. When you graduate from your toy computers, then you can rant with authority.

    If you working on an AS/400 and using a command line tool because THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE; then admit that you use it because it is what is available. But don't look down your nose at people who don't. How about having to access one of these from about 1,000 miles away through a remote connection while you're traveling through an airport on your way to figuring out why the customer's app keeps crashing?

    Even if that beast is running virtual machines to support a certain toy OS that can't scale worth a damn so you can get your toy GUI development environment up and running, there's no way you get a usable GUI through an SSH tunnel over a flaky wireless connection.
  26. Re:No graphical interface ... by PinkyDead · · Score: 1 · on Command Line Life Partner Wanted

    Yeah, but she must have a great rack with some open slots.

    Check it out!

  27. Re:Duh by fmstasi · · Score: 1 · on World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31

    In many C based programs, your gold would overflow and drop to (-2^31+1), -2147483647, since the C programming language doesn't offer the programmer any exception handling mechanism for overflow detection (overflows are silently allowed to happen), and game developers don't necessarily anticipate such extremes.

    Overflows (and underflows) are silently allowed to happen in most languages who use the underlying integer arithmetic on the processor. Yes, there is an overflow flag, but it is widely unused (see e.g. http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4466549/). For example, even Java regularly overflows operations on integer types (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#9194/). Therefore the problem is not a C (or Assembler) limitation, and sometimes is even considered a feature.

    Try dynamically typed languages or numeric classes for better luck - but one should think about what he's doing anyway, since things may get a bit slower...

  28. Re:Duh by fmstasi · · Score: 1 · on World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31

    In many C based programs, your gold would overflow and drop to (-2^31+1), -2147483647, since the C programming language doesn't offer the programmer any exception handling mechanism for overflow detection (overflows are silently allowed to happen), and game developers don't necessarily anticipate such extremes.

    Overflows (and underflows) are silently allowed to happen in most languages who use the underlying integer arithmetic on the processor. Yes, there is an overflow flag, but it is widely unused (see e.g. http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4466549/). For example, even Java regularly overflows operations on integer types (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#9194/). Therefore the problem is not a C (or Assembler) limitation, and sometimes is even considered a feature.

    Try dynamically typed languages or numeric classes for better luck - but one should think about what he's doing anyway, since things may get a bit slower...

  29. With Sun Machines and Python it is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night?

    We have around 35 Sun servers all with ALOM ( http://www.sun.com/servers/alom.html ) - all of them used to be always on 24x7. I wrote a simple python script using the telnetlib module that runs on a backup server which is required to be on all times. The script runs as a cron job, connects to the ALOM on each one of the 35 servers at night and shuts them down. It brings then back up early in the morning.

    Few people complained that they needed their server to be up at some nights or weekends - I worked around that by giving them a folder to scp a file with server name as the file name and the script just skips shutting down those servers which have files of their hostname in the SCP folder for that day. Worked well so far. People from other divisions even started using the scripts for their servers.

  30. DTrace by Lally+Singh · · Score: 1 · on Tools For Understanding Code?

    Put solaris 10 on a PC (or vmware or what not). Then, start tracing function (& method) call invocations. Use ustack() to save the stack at the point of invocation.
    For C++: http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/dtrace_cc.html
    Java: http://www.devx.com/Java/Article/33943
    C: The dtrace docs :-)

    Debuggers are useful here & there, but 90% of the figuring out in a program is complexity spread over way too much code to try and figure out single-stepping in a debugger.

    DTrace has taken over for both the debugger & printf() for me. Also, as I can change my script and rerun it on the same running process, my round-trip time has reduced quite a bit.

  31. Re:Meh.... by Randolpho · · Score: 1 · on Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked

    Right now NOTHING even writes to MS-OOXML.
    Office 2007 does, but I get your point. Mostly, however, that's a marketing choice on the part of Microsoft's competitors rather than an implementation issue. Yes, OOXML has a complex XML schema, but it's quite possible to write to the format.

    Then due to the fact that there are blobs of binary data in it, in propriety Microsoft formats. Others are not free to implement code that reads or writes these formats. These formats are not publically documented. Let alone public standards.
    I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you saying that OOXML has proprietary MS formats for its binary data? I was led to believe OOXML follows the Open Packaging Convention which, although written by Microsoft, is amazingly similar to ODF's packaging; both being, essentially, a zip collection of XML files and binary files, the binary files being images, movies, or code.

    What proprietary binary blobs are you talking about? Now, I'll admit that you could embed, say, a .WMV file in an OOXML file, which is a proprietary Microsoft binary blob, but you could also embed that .WMV file in an ODF file. Or you could embed a .MOV file in either format, which is a proprietary Apple binary blob.

    Who else will ever be able to read MS-OOXML?
    Anybody with a zip tool like GZIP or WinZip and a text reader like EMACS or Notepad.

    Who else will be able to write to it?
    See above.

    Only Microsoft.
    Again, I'd like to know what those proprietary binary blobs are. If they exist, sure, you might be right. But all evidence is to the contrary.

    At least when you are talking about xhtml or html5 it is possible to create a browser that can read and render both formats.
    And it's quite possible to create a word processor that can read, write, and render both ODF and OOXML. Hell, both Microsoft and Sun have plugins for Word 2007 that do that. Are they full translations? Probably not always, 'cause there *are* major differences in the way things are organized in the schema.

    But they do render the issue moot, in my opinion, hence my original "Meh" post. What do I really care, as a consumer? Not a hell of a lot -- I can work with either format I choose, and as long as I don't need the fancy bells and whistles that don't translate well, I can translate between them pretty much without pain.

    What do I really care as a programmer? Not a lot, as long as I can figure out the XML schema for either format when I need to mess with them. Thankfully, there is plenty of documentation on both sides on the subject. I already have the tools to get into both formats, in the form of zip reading code and XML parsers. Will I get more pain trying to program against OOXML? Probably, because it's a more complex format. Does that really matter in the long run?

    Not really.
  32. Re:Rewrite in Java by dens · · Score: 2, Informative · on Sun Buys MySQL

    ...and it comes with java 6 as javadb.

  33. Re:must not have been a hard job by tbannist · · Score: 1 · on Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked

    Office has a plethora of management tools to ease rollout and configuration. When was the last time you saw end-users expected to configure Outlook themselves? Yesterday.

    I think small to medium sized companies often don't use any of those tools because they're too complicated and cost too much.

    On the other hand, if your company is large enough to need them, the comparison should probably be against StarOffice instead of OpenOffice. Because StarOffice does have deployment management tools...
    http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/enterprise_tools.jsp
  34. Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion! by theskipper · · Score: 4, Informative · on Sun Buys MySQL

    Ulterior motives aside, looking at it from the marketing perspective it presents a nice unified package for the big boys. On the golf course the sales drones will have clear tit-for-tat competition with MS's offerings.

    From the official blog:

    So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.

  35. Re:Im a sun employee by perdelucena · · Score: 1 · on Sun Buys MySQL

    mv JavaDB MySQL

  36. Re:Not a rash move by canuck57 · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Sun Buys MySQL

    But I think most people thought Sun might push PostgreSQL which is a nice database. Not sure why Sun would purchase MySQL, seems like an expensive PR move. I for one have seen Sun's product support deteriorate over the years, and hope they keep support for MySQL independent of the main line support. Or maybe this plays into Oracle as Oracle had or has an alliance with Sun. Is this alliance strained?

  37. Jonathan Schwartz's Blog by sucker_muts · · Score: 5, Informative · on Sun Buys MySQL

    This is quite interesting news! Check out what Jonathan Schwartz has to say about this:

    http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

  38. What happens now with Oracle and PostgtreSQL? by IYagami · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Sun Buys MySQL

    Right now Sun supports PostgreSQL on Solaris (http://www.sun.com/software/products/postgresql/index.jsp) and Oracle is one of the main applications used in Solaris.

    I think this is a move to sell support to their customers, like asking: "Do you need an Oracle Database?"
    - If the answer is "YES", then we will sell you our servers and OS support
    - If the answer is "NO", then we will sell you our servers and OS support AND MySQL / PostgreSQL support

    There is a very good entry on a Sun blog about the cost of propietary databases and the "commodization" of this market:
    http://blogs.sun.com/jkshah/entry/cost_of_proprietary_database

  39. Re:Cross platform spyware! by Ilgaz · · Score: 1 · on First Scareware For the Mac

    It has been tried. The media was quick to get alerted about it. A special thank you for horrible Java implementation of Windows that time which sent a "heads up" to Sun and every geek/professional having something to do with Java :)

    http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=405425&messageID=1966682

    http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453059998

    It was based on Java, was distributed by Java P2P application. One should be glad that Macs were still not that popular that time.

  40. Re:must not have been a hard job by Psych0_Jack · · Score: 4, Informative · on Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked

    Sun has an ODF plug-in for MS Office 2000-2007. It's not like using ODF means you are forced to use OpenOffice.org. Isn't that the point of an open format, no vendor lock-in?

  41. Time for Java by teknopurge · · Score: 5, Informative · on VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

    Not a troll.

    Java has a scripting extension. No, not Javascript(only), but you can plug various Scripting languages into it, or use Judo which is the real endgame for this problem.

  42. Re:The real questions are... by hjf · · Score: 1 · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    Well, I've been investigating a little. Yes, you can't grow an array in the sense of "adding more disks". But interestingly enough, you CAN replace the disks one by one and in the end (you will have to do a zfs export/import which is zfs for remounting), the array will grow to use all the new available space. It's not completely online (as you have to export/import and you will lose access for a few seconds) but the important thing is that it works.

    Here's a link I found after I tried it http://blogs.sun.com/mmusante/entry/zfs_and_automatically_growing_pools

  43. Re:It's a Monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on EU Launches Yet Another Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft

    Microsoft is a monopoly.
    No it's not because I can buy one of these, or this, or even this thing here.
  44. Re:Linux? by superpat · · Score: 1 · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    I met Stallman late last year. I mentioned that I worked on an OSS project at Sun (OpenSSO) and, almost apologetically, that it was CDDL. He picked up my tone and immediately replied "That's great - that's still free software". So - CDDL, 'open source', according to OSI, 'free', according to RMS.

  45. Re:Easy, no Licenses/activation key by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1 · on Promoting FOSS to People Who Don't Care

    That's why I suggest -- and not as a joke -- selling FOSS in boxed packages in retail stores.

    "OpenOffice is the free version of StarOffice. They give you the free one to use and hope that one day you'll want to buy the commercial version (which is still cheaper than Microsoft Office)."

  46. Re:Hindenstromics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Huge Hydrogen Cloud Will Hit Milky Way

    ...but I bet it won't look this cool.

  47. Re:linux md is grow-able, as is xfs and ext3 by iPaqMan · · Score: 4, Informative · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    You should watch these. (thanks andrewg for links)

    For anyone who has not seen the ZFS demonstration videos by Bill Moore you must watch the link.

    High Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/high_band...

    Low Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/low_bandw...

    Also general info here:

    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ds/zfs.jsp
    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs_learning_center.jsp

  48. Re:linux md is grow-able, as is xfs and ext3 by iPaqMan · · Score: 4, Informative · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    You should watch these. (thanks andrewg for links)

    For anyone who has not seen the ZFS demonstration videos by Bill Moore you must watch the link.

    High Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/high_band...

    Low Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/low_bandw...

    Also general info here:

    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ds/zfs.jsp
    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs_learning_center.jsp

  49. Re:linux md is grow-able, as is xfs and ext3 by iPaqMan · · Score: 4, Informative · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    You should watch these. (thanks andrewg for links)

    For anyone who has not seen the ZFS demonstration videos by Bill Moore you must watch the link.

    High Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/high_band...

    Low Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/low_bandw...

    Also general info here:

    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ds/zfs.jsp
    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs_learning_center.jsp

  50. Re:linux md is grow-able, as is xfs and ext3 by iPaqMan · · Score: 4, Informative · on ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

    You should watch these. (thanks andrewg for links)

    For anyone who has not seen the ZFS demonstration videos by Bill Moore you must watch the link.

    High Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/high_band...

    Low Bandwidth versions - http://www.sun.com/software/media/real/zfs_learningcenter/low_bandw...

    Also general info here:

    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ds/zfs.jsp
    - http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs_learning_center.jsp