Trail of Tears: MySQL, ODBC, & OpenOffice 1.0

Joe Barr writes " I found a wonderful "how-to" piece called "OpenOffice.org 1.0, ODBC and MySQL," by John McCreesh. In the introduction, McCreesh writes about OpenOffice.org 1.0's "best kept secret" -- that secret being the fact that hidden away inside, completely unknown to most OpenOffice users, is a user-friendly front end for databases that is "a Microsoft Access (and more) equivalent." That may be so, but there is a very good reason why it's a secret: it's too damn hard getting OpenOffice and ODBC wired up correctly."

Comments

Something open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard to set up?! Never!

Re:Something open source?

[oliver22222222222222]

I heard it was OK but I'm not so sure anymore. I think I'll get it checked out this afternoon.

Re:Something open source?

[MikeFM]

The first time I tried it I connected it both to MySQL and M$ Access inside of 15 minutes having never used either OpenOffice or ODBC before. It wasn't difficult at all. I didn't like it and went back to my own way of doing things but it wasn't difficult to setup. I'd say if you have trouble with the setup you really don't want to be messing with databases without a more experienced user to guide you. Try IRC or a mailing list - lots of help is available.

Re:Something open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

All the stuff the author describes works out of the box without compiling anything, rebuilding anything or even reconfiguring anything on Debian.

Any chance the Debian guys can tell the OOo guys about how to make it work out-of-box for everybody? Then everybody wins.

(Even Apple, once so hated it rated a GNU boycott, is telling the Konq team about their improvements.)

As much as I love open-source, this is one thing that really frustrates me. Everybody feels the need to have their own version (PostgreSQL/MySQL, Debian/Redhat, Gnome/KDE) so any problems that arise need to be solved twice. Sure, for many of these things, there's a reason to have multiple programs, but not, I suspect, as often as there are n versions of each type of program.

Re:Something open source?

[Ed Avis]

Yes, most of the author's problems were files being in different locations. The clash between /usr/lib/ and /usr/local/lib/ wouldn't happen under any packaging system (since /usr/local/ is not touched by the package manager), and the difference in the location of the socket is something the vendor ought to have fixed, by shipping packages that agree on the location.

It isn't clear from the article where he got the RPMs from. If they were from a mixture of different places, it's not that surprising that there were difficulties. Maybe the answer is for the package builders to talk to each other a bit more.

Re:Something open source?

[dJCL]

I scraped the article of newsforge earlier today, and out of sheer curiosity I tried to get it working. I'm running debian, had OO installed already and am using mysql for some other work here already...

I just read his article for some hints, and installed the unixODBC and the mysql driver using the package manager(could have used the command line, I just like the interface) and modified one file to point it at a table...(there is a gui for this too) and it worked in OO.

Debian straight up is not always for beginers, I know what I am doing(at least on mondays) and even then I didn't have to think about it much(other than messing with my passwords elsewhere). I've used some deb derivatives, they could make something like this setup a joke to do.

This is a good tool to have, I won't use it because I like to command line, but it will make things easier soon. OO is well writen enough that it just deals with ODBC, and ODBC is very close to the simplicity of setup. So we soon will not have the problem that the article described.

Enjoy.

Re:Something open source?

[oconnorcjo]

The clash between /usr/lib/ and /usr/local/lib/ wouldn't happen under any packaging system (since /usr/local/ is not touched by the package manager) ...
*SNIP*

It isn't clear from the article where he got the RPMs from. If they were from a mixture of different places, it's not that surprising that there were difficulties. Maybe the answer is for the package builders to talk to each other a bit more.

This is why Microsoft implimented a registry. Now the registry is badly implimented and has some bad drawbacks (like the fact that it is used for EVERYTHING and thus WAY OVERBLOATED) but a unified configuration database (that just said where a package is located and where its "main" configuration file/s were located) would solve these problems and the RPM packagers would not have to care about that kind of stuff.

Re:Something open source?

[Ed Avis]

Having a registry just pushes the problem to another level: people have to agree on whereabouts in the registry the information is stored. If they don't currently agree on /tmp/foo.sock versus /var/tmp/foo/0.sock, what makes you think they will agree on \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Vendors\Foo Corporation\Foo\1.45\Configuration\SocketLocation rather than \\HKEY_USERS\All Users\Software\Foo 1.45\Socket?

We already have a hierarchical database used for storing information and associating it with particular names. It's called the filesystem. No need to reinvent the wheel. FWIW, .NET does not use the Windows registry at all, (IIRC).

Re:Something open source?

[oconnorcjo]

tmp/foo.sock versus /var/tmp/foo/0.sock, what makes you think they will agree on \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Vendors\Foo Corporation\Foo\1.45\Configuration\SocketLocation rather than \\HKEY_USERS\All Users\Software\Foo 1.45\Socket?

You read that it that would be best to create Microsofts registry (which I already said was flawed) and there should be no (\\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or \\HKEY_USERS\ or \\HKEY anything) but the fact remains is that nobody has any dificulty finding stuff using Microsofts registry and it is what it does best. Searching through filesystems is ineficient, prone to mistakes and just not what it was designed for. Programs should not NEED TO BE IN A SPECIFIC DIRECTORY. RPM's should ask YOU where you want programs to be and the dependancies should be handled by a database that other programs just find with a simple query. As a side note to .Net using the registry- of course Microsofts .Net framework puts entries into the registry when you install it!

Re:Something open source?

[da]

but the fact remains is that nobody has any dificulty finding stuff using Microsofts registry

haha, hahahaha, haha....

Hmm, now, just remind me again, was that HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\ {1F2E5C40-9550-11CE-99D2-00AA006E086C}or was that HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\ {1F2E5C40-9550-11CE-98D2-00AA006E086C}? I forget...

Re:Something open source?

[Ed Avis]

Nobody has difficulty finding stuff in the registry? It seems pretty awkward to me. Perhaps I am in a minority of one, but locating the particular key needed to change things like the background colour of the login screen takes ages. Perhaps I am in a minority of one. It doesn't help that the data for a single program is strewn across seemingly random parts of the registry (at least, this is the case for Windows itself).

If programs should not NEED TO BE IN A SPECIFIC DIRECTORY, why should they NEED TO BE IN A SPECIFIC TREE OF THE REGISTRY? They both come down to the same thing, agreeing on a location.

Also

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you get it working, it is not as easy to use as Access anyway. I love OO.org, but I'm not too fond of the database access component. Too bad I don't know C/C++...

Not a 'secret'

[nurb432]

Its mentioned in the documentation, but agreed its a pain, and not fully documented, yet.

I think they are waiting until reporting is done to truely 'support' it..

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but microsoft doesn't produce a version of MS Office for my linux box.

Huh?

[BoomerSooner]

The "journalist" who wrote the article said his friend was having a hard time getting MySQL, OpenOffice and Linux (Suse) to work. He then lists that his friend can 1) network computers 2) make anything work in DOS and Windows and 3) simply installed the RPMs.

I'm not sure what the hell qualifies this guy to be able to do much of anything in Linux much less tie MySQL to OO via ODBC.

Re:Huh?

[Ravensfire]

Ah, so a person must be highly technical to use Linux, or use Open Office in this fashion. My bad - I thought it would be nice for a person with some technical knowledge to be able to do something useful.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of talking to his qualifications, maybe instead you should realize that you were once a newb too.

Open source has to have advantages over Corporate software to be used. One of the BIGGEST drawbacks to open source is that you CAN'T just install it and run it.

Useability and compatibility is open source's greatest weakness and greatest strength. If open source software was more USABLE than corporate software, corporations would cease to exist over night.

Re:Huh?

[hackstraw]

I guess the same thing that qualifies the average suit to be able to do this on a Windows box. (ie, the suit can get it to work)

Common, I though the whole goal of OpenOffice, KDE, etc was to be "just like Windows".

No this is not flamebait, I'm a Linux freak. But I'm just trying to make a point.

Re:Huh?

[Chazmyrr]

You're right. The guy hasn't paid his dues. He hasn't spent days poring over man pages. He hasn't spent hours trying to recompile his kernel to get it to recognize his NIC. He probably doesn't even know how to use xf86config.

Then again, maybe the point was you shouldn't have to be a wizard to get an office suite to talk to an odbc datasource. Maybe the point was that real people trying to do real work don't want to be a sysadmin. They just want to get their work done.

Re:Huh?

[oliverthered]

He is a Muppet.
1: he didn't checkout OpenOffice.org, take a look at Road map. There are quite a few changes going into the DB area of OpenOffice. Including native drivers, so no need for ODBC.
2: He used MYSql and didn't test postgres too. Sure MYSql's fine if you don't want to do anything fancy, but postgres has a far fuller feature set and make for better DB tests.
3: He's got an uncle called Kermit and he likes to sit half way up the stairs.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that he's meant to be informing people. Ok, so most news is made up and full shit, but then most news like that gets slated on /.

The parent should have said, the review is shit beacuse the Journalist doesn't have the skills to investigate what he's reviewing (and it's not that hard).

If he'd have said, 'fuck me it was hard, but the friendly guys on the mailing list helped me, and everything was ok in a few ticks.', that'd be a good review.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

xf86config?

xf86Cfg, then vi /etc/X11/XF86Config

xf86config is ummmm..... ahhhh..... I want vi.

Re:Huh?

[Tackhead]

> 3) simply installed the RPMs.
>
> I'm not sure what the hell qualifies this guy to be able to do much of anything in Linux much less tie MySQL to OO via ODBC.

Yeah! Stupid fucking luzer! He heard that "RPMs" were packages you "installed". So he installed them!

What a fucking luser. He's not worthy of running MySQL with an office package via ODBC.

He's, like, such a fucking luser, he's only qualified to... umm... click SETUP.EXE and install MS Access and MS Office, which, umm... oh...

...look. We were just kidding all along. Some people have taken that to mean that this is using spreadsheets hooked into live databases to solve engineering or business problems.

It's not. It's about using a cool technology (MySQL) and another cool technoogy (Open Office) and a third cool technology (ODBC), and, like, who cares if only the developers on the project can get it to work. Getting it to work - scratching that itch - is what counts. Once we've got it working, we can go on to playing with the next shiny thing.

If it's about using the software, just use that Microsoft crap. What's that? You say that even though it's crap, at least you can install it in 20 minutes and start doing your business or engineering problems with it? Geez, it's always about you, isn't it?

Re:Huh?

[Have Blue]

Congratulations, you're the reason Linux will never make it on the desktop.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have confused the word "common", with the two words "come on". They're very different you know.

Re:Huh?

[poot_rootbeer]

I'm not sure what the hell qualifies this guy to be able to do much of anything in Linux

It should Just Work.

It should Just Work.

I'm going to keep repeating this until you elitist, 3L33Te5t, smug Linux coding wizards "get it" and start caring about user friendliness.

It should Just Work.

Re:Huh?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well actually this is the last tool I needed to completely cut loose from MS office. I run a database of Volunteers for a large folk festival. Every year I have to send out several mailings to about 1000 people at a time. To automate the process, I shoot out mailing labels in Access. I tried writing my own mailing list program, but frankly I have a database to run. I've written my share of drivers to know that if a canned product will do it for you USE IT.

Now I use OpenOffice religiously, and MySQL (what the present database is written in.) The only reason my Viao still has a Windows partion is for printing the labels. Okay, that and Civ. This is gravy. This is soooo cooool. My head is stuffed with applications for this integration. Must stop posting and start coding...

Re:Huh?

[hvoss]

OK, I am not a journalist, I am a linux expert. I installed the OO1.02 binaries, got the mysql binaries, got unixodbc compiled, got it all setup according to the instructions in the mentioned HOWTO.
Then I tried to activate the ODBC connection. It did ask for a password as specified in the connection. Then OpenOffice crashed on me.

So tell me, where couldn't this go wrong. (The UnixODBC DataManager tool does work flawlessly.).
Sigh, do I now have to compile my own OpenOffice installation?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

> (Score:2, Flamebait)

Moron moderators. Yes, it's caustically sarcastic, but hardly flamebait.

Re:Huh?

[Tackhead]

> Well actually this is the last tool I needed to completely cut loose from MS office. I run a database of Volunteers for a large folk festival. Every year I have to send out several mailings to about 1000 people at a time. To automate the process, I shoot out mailing labels in Access. I tried writing my own mailing list program, but frankly I have a database to run. I've written my share of drivers to know that if a canned product will do it for you USE IT.

Exactly.

I can't speak for all developers, but for me, one of the hardest things to do is to pick up where someone else left off. I don't know jack about the guy's code, don't know where he puts stuff, don't know what the variables mean, zip.

Unless you're part of the development team, you can't just "write the missing stuff" in an afternoon.

And that leaves you with three unpleasant options: (1) Bang your head against the wall for a few hours, days, weeks until you figure out how to patch something together, (2) ask/beg/wait for the developers to build it for you, or (3) Use the canned MS crapware.

For your situation - this being the last tool you need to cut Billgatus' apron strings - it might actually be worth a few days/weeks of head-banging :)

For a lot of users who haven't cut over yet, the time/effort payoff is much smaller. If you can get a Winblows system installed in less than an hour (umm, and keep it behind a firewall for a few more hours while you kill off the un-necessary "services" and security patches), and your goal is to have a box that you can use for gaming, multimedia playback, and office-type apps that you're bringing home from work, most folks will continue to use M$ware, even if only in a dual-boot system.

Re:Huh?

[Cromac]

Setting up the database connection to an Access db using the Windows version of OO was easy, at least easy to someone with even a minimal idea that a DSN was needed to form the connection. Once that was done, which really wasn't more than a few clicks, there was nothing to editing tables and running SQL queries. The interface that OO used wasn't as easy as Access, at least to someone who's used Access and not OO for this task, but it wasn't impossible and seemed to be a viable alternative to someone wanting to get away from MS products.

Re:Huh?

[Metrol]

I thought it would be nice for a person with some technical knowledge to be able to do something useful.

A person with "some" technical knowledge should be able to do very useful things. Amongst those things are not included are configuring system level services that very well may introduce a significant number of security issues involving a database.

At the unixODBC web site you'll see a "User's" manual online. Upon installing this application there is also an "Administrators" manual. These are two very different audiences.

Once a competent administrator has performed the installation, which isn't even a third as bad as the article makes it out to be, the user side of things looks exactly like the ODBC configuration for Windows.

For the record, I just installed this on FreeBSD after reading through the article. I wanted to see how tough it was, and it sounded rather interesting. It wasn't a Joe SixPack installation, but it is running very nicely from OpenOffice's screen.

Furthermore, I wouldn't want Joe SixPack doing a config like this on Windows either.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try FreeCiv instead of Civ.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit are the Microsoft Mouseketeers ever moderating in force today! Is it a holiday in Redmond or something?

Secret?

[k98sven]

Yes, it may be unknown to most users, but that doesn't mean it's hidden any more than most features in Office.

Anyway, AFAIK a better (non-ODBC) MySQL driver for openoffice.org has been up there on their to-do list for quite some time.

So why not scratch that itch instead?

Re:Secret?

[Mr. Smoove]

It has been completed and is ready for inclusion in the next release of OOo (1.1) - the beta of which is due out towards the end of this month.

Re:Secret?

[GooberToo]

Is there a PostgreSQL driver for it?

Re:Secret?

[chriskenrick]

Is there a PostgreSQL driver for it?

Actually, yes. I managed to talk ODBC from a PHP script running under Apache to a PostgreSQL backend. This was under Redhat 7.3, just using the provided RPMs. Look into the unixODBC and postgresql-odbc packages. Getting the config files set up properly was the biggest thing, but after that it was a piece of cake.

MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Anonymous Coward]

Install MySQL?
Better get support contract
Config files scattered

ODBC's pow'r
Links data hither and yon
Like many silkworms

Free office software
Fighting forces from Redmond
Freedom is power

Relevant comments
Readers like them, yes they do
Thoughtful minds welcomed

Lame haikus you say?
OK bub, then write your own
Not so easy, huh?

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[ShavenYak]

In Soviet* Russia
The OpenOffice haiku
Writes Anon Coward!

Natalie Portman,
Beowulf cluster of grits;
Phase three is profit.

Let us not forget
In A. D. Two-one-oh-one
War was beginning.

* To make this work, pronounce it "sov-yet".

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Chocolate Teapot]

You are a troll
A shameless waste of bandwidth
Keep up the good work ;)

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Green Light]

You are a troll
A shameless waste of bandwidth
Keep up the good work ;)

Huh? Your first line only has 4 syllables, but it appears that you are trying for your own haiku.

Am I missing something here?

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Chocolate Teapot]

Oh crap! I screwed up!
Moderators do your worst
Flame my sorry ass

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Anonymous Coward]

That was not a troll
Off Topic though it may be
Mods are smoking crack!

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[j_kenpo]

Hehehe Im reminded of an old Married with Children episode with Bud Bundy jumping up and down, arms flailing screaming "I am not a troll!"

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded this as Off-topic is an idiot. A Troll... arguably.

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Anonymous Coward]

it'd be a lot better if this were original, and not copied straight from a LinuxWorld editor's comment following the article.

Funny how you managed to drop off the final haiku that was the author's attribution.

Re:MySQL, ODBC, OpenOffice haikus

[Anonymous Coward]

But its still closer to a real haiku then most of the others. This one ends with a "Huh?" line. The last line of a haiku should seem at odds or counterpunctle to the first. It should cause the reader to pause. So a simple fix;
Your only a troll

Yes..

[FungiSpunk]

...all very good but do you get that little odbctest util like you do on Windows?

Re:Yes..

[PigleT]

You get an _isql_ with unixODBC, and an _odbctest_ with iODBC (see http://www.iodbc.org/ - there is choice amongst driver-managers, and iODBC even comes with a gtk config app looking relatively similar to Windoze' ODBC Administrator, if you like that sort of thing).

Trail of Tears?

[mr100percent]

Hey, I wouldn't use "Trail of Tears" as the headline.

The Trail of Tears was the forced emigration of Native Americans from the South to Oaklahoma. It was brutal and painful, and something that Americans don't like to talk about.

"In one of the saddest episodes of our brief history, men, women, and children were taken from their land, herded into makeshift forts with minimal facilities and food, then forced to march a thousand miles(Some made part of the trip by boat in equally horrible conditions). Under the generally indifferent army commanders, human losses for the first groups of Cherokee removed were extremely high... About 4000 Cherokee died as a result of the removal. The route they traversed and the journey itself became known as "The Trail of Tears" or, as a direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail Where They Cried" ("Nunna daul Tsuny"). "

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it would be akin forcing MS Access/SQL Server users to set this mess up, then?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to see someone beat me to make this point.

Honestly, I'm no monster of political correctness (lifelong Republican, in fact) but "Trail of Tears" over configuring MySQL? Come on, folks.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[monadicIO]

I'm no troll, and have nothing against the native Americans, and have no intention of making light of their sufferings.
However, why does everyone have to be sensitive to everything that might offend anyone?
I find the political correctness thing is now as bad as censorship - there are no laws against saying things, but you'll be demonized for the rest of your life for having said them.
I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that).

Re:Trail of Tears?

[webmaestro]

Hey, if your so smart, why can't you even spell Oklahoma right?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[nagora]

It was brutal and painful, and something that Americans don't like to talk about.

Isn't that a good reason to use it?

TWW

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we live in a culture of victimhood. How else do you explain idiot "Italian American Anti-Defimation" groups complaining about the Sopranos?

(and before anyone pitches a fit I'm as Dago as they come... with a last name that has ten letters and ends in a vowel)

Re:Trail of Tears?

[blaine]

Eh. On the one hand, yes, political correctness sucks.

On the other hand, comparing the configuration problems inherent to OpenOffice with the Trail of Tears is pretty obnoxious. I mean, what next, "Linux Networking: 9/11 All Over Again"?

I really don't think this is a case of being overly politically correct. It's more that the author of the article used an entirely inappropriate title, given the subject. Comparing computer configuration problems with the death of thousands is, well, shitty.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could also read OU's student newspaper, The Oaklahoma Daily, or remember one of those ships that sank at Pearl Harbor, the USS Oaklahoma.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

You bastard. You made me laugh at 9/11. How dare you?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

That means the terrorists have won.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if we titled the story "Pogrom" or "Death march" do you think it would piss anyone off?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[abe ferlman]

However, why does everyone have to be sensitive to everything that might offend anyone?

Because (1) it's not nice to offend people and (2) it's important to understand that offense is in the eye of the offended, not the offender.

If you are not strange, you wouldn't like it if I walked up to your mother and called her a two-dollar whore. It's not censorship to suggest that this is a bad idea, it's common decency.

I imagine you're not part of a culture where flip references to your history can be offensive, but there are people who are and it's just common decency to not be a jerk to those people, especially when a similar phrase would do just fine (Path of pain, tutorial of terror, whatever :)

No one's going to ask you not to use C, there's a clear differentiation between the tool and the motivation of the user in your example. But it wouldn't be out of line to ask a software project to change it's name if it were genuinely offensive.

People who complain about political correctness, in my experience, complain because they say such awful things, for instance, they'll say "this may not be politically correct, but" then tell a mean-spirited N-word joke or the like.

There's the caricature version of political correctness (vertically challenged, etc.), and then there's common decency- too often people engaging in the latter are viciously attacked for engaging in the former.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[feed_me_cereal]

However, why does everyone have to be sensitive to everything that might offend anyone?

I don't know about all situations, but some assholes sailing over to your country and making you march to your death doesn't seem that comparable to the hassle of setting up open-office. So why is mentioning the significance of the trail of tears a bad thing? At worst, someone gets educated.

I find the political correctness thing is now as bad as censorship

How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion? People are allowed to voice their opinion about things, even about what speech they find offensive. By your logic, critique is censorship just because people will be afraid of being critiqued and therefore not speak. That's BS. You're responsible for the things you say, whether you like it or not.

I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that)

Well then that PC guy is a moron and we can all laugh at him (allong with any cowards who actually bend to his will). It's a far cry from pointing out a comparison between installing OSS and mass-murder. Don't oversimplyfy political correctness. You're just as bad as the "PC freaks" you malign.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, some of us get treated differently once they find out we're italian. It may be all rosy for you, but others get it differently "Hey, I don't want you breaking my legs if I can't make the deal."

Pissed my family off.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Coward" has six letters and ends in a consonant, you insensitive clod!

In Soviet Russia, Italian-American defames you.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably for the same reason you can't spell "you're"

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Doctor Fishboy]

Thanks for the information. I'm a Brit working in America and my American history is poor to say the least. I'm not sure that the editor who wrote the headline intended this to be an offensive headline, though. I've used "Trail of tears" as a general comment for any hard task in the past.

Dr Fish

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

>[W]hy does everyone have to be sensitive to
>everything that might offend anyone?

They don't. But they SHOULD be sensitive to the things that DO offend entire ethnic groups. Would you be happier with "Waco Barbeque: MySql..." or "9/11 flight plan: MySql..." ?
"Tianamen Square Soldiers are Heros: MySql...?"

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

So. Why does do valid responses to this get marked down "troll" while this lame bit of reactionism gets a 5?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong: the terrorists will only have won if you laugh at "Kangaroo Jack."

Re:Trail of Tears?

[plague3106]

(1) it's not nice to offend people

How about this nice little thing i like to call 'getting over it.' People are WAY too easily offended nowadays. I'm going to speak my mind, and if that offends you, well i'm sorry but thats your problem, not mine. the world is not a nice place.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

thart's real fucking funny, you commy asshole

Re:Trail of Tears?

[extra88]

It's a poor use of language. "Trail of Tears" has a very specific meaning which is way beyond the sentiment they're trying to convey (which any U.S.-ian should know but probably doesn't since we're so ignorant of history). Exaggeration is fine but this is taking it to an extreme. You might as well go all the way and call the article "MySQL, ODBC, & OpenOffice 1.0, a Configruation Holocaust." Actually that might not be as bad because "Holocaust" is qualified with an adjective which indicates its scope. No, it still sucks.

Powerful words should be used carefully, otherwise their glib use leaves our language impoverished and trivialized.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

yo mama's an overpaid two-dollar whore

Re:Trail of Tears?

[drinkypoo]

I wouldn't be upset because it's offensive; It's allegory, man, allegory! (With apologies to Trudeau.) But I would be upset because it's simply not that hard. Saying walking home with sweaty boxers giving you a crotch rash, THAT is a trail of tears, or perhaps a nature trail to hell. But this, well, this is a doddle.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[salesgeek]

Political Correctness is a problem - sometimes. But in this case, it is at a level higher than PC. Perhaps because we never again want to see another people go through what our people have been through.

To a Native American like myself, to compare a great human tradgedy to your problems with an incomplete piece software is insulting. It trivializes the death of much of my people and the death of our entire way of life and culture. It's just a bad analogy.

C is a tool. The person programming the bomber is a toolmaker. The pilot is alas a soldier following orders, the orders come from a government, and that government exists at the privelidge of the people it serves.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm as Dago as they come... with a last name that has ten letters and ends in a vowel

Hey, me too. (10 letters, ending in vowel)

Maybe you and me should go out for a sangwich some time.

--

Note to non-Italians:
sangwich == sandwich

Re:Trail of Tears?

[rogueroo]

the world is not a nice place.

And apparently you are doing your part to keep it so. Thanks.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, let's try:

"Pogrom: SBC Considering Buying DirecTV"

"Death March: Build Your Own LCD Bus Schedule"

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Reality Master 101]

it's important to understand that offense is in the eye of the offended, not the offender.

NO NO NO!! Sorry to come off so strongly, but this is completely and TOTALLY wrong.

You cannot define offense by who is offended, because you can ALWAYS find someone who is offended by ANYTHING.

The rational point of view is looking at the intent of what someone is saying. I'm particularly reminded of someone who was fired for using the word "niggardly" in a staff meeting! A black person was offended, even though the word has absolutely nothing to do with the word "nigger", and the person was forced to resign. Is this really the world you want where the idiots who get offended decide who gets lynched (word used intentionally)?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the world would be a better place without morons like you who have "feelings". Please. Take your feelings and shove it up your ass. All up in that ass. Why? Because a pussy is someone who cries like a bitch when someone says that they're a pussy. Fucking deal with it!

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take your feelings and shove it up your ass. All up in that ass. Why? Because a pussy is someone who cries like a bitch when someone says that they're a pussy. Fucking deal with it!

Have you considered a career in telephone customer support?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about being overly sensitive. It's about unwarranted hyperbole. It's also about diluting the meaning and impact of a phrase. This has already happened with "Nazi;" we no longer react with appropriate horror at the idea of Nazism... now it's just a vague insult that we use to talk about a soup chef. Inevitable, I suppose, but that doesn't make it right.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[abe ferlman]

You cannot define offense by who is offended, because you can ALWAYS find someone who is offended by ANYTHING.

So? That doesn't mean they're not really offended. But let's face it, some offenses are worse than others. You want to make it sound like words are completely neutral, but they're not.

My goal is not to offend no one, but to minimize offense where possible.

The rational point of view is looking at the intent of what someone is saying.

But intent is not always conscious, and in fact not always relevant. People don't usually directly mean hurtful things by making gay jokes, but they create a hurtful atmosphere by perpetuating them. Just because you're not hurt by something doesn't mean others aren't. You are not a linguistic island.

Furthermore, announcing that something is the "rational point of view" kind of begs the question of whether what you're about to say is correct, doesn't it? Especially when precisely what we're discussing is differing points of view.

I'm particularly reminded of someone who was fired [adversity.net] for using the word "niggardly" in a staff meeting! A black person was offended, even though the word has absolutely nothing to do with the word "nigger"

This was a tough case. The words do sound an awful lot like each other, even though you correctly imply that their etymologies seem to differ. If I were an intelligent racist (how I wish that were a simple oxymoron), I would realize that I could say a lot of the things I mean without actually saying them.

It turns out, I wouldn't mind at all if the word niggardly were used less because, as your example demonstrates, it is more effective at creating confusion than at connoting that someone is cheap. It's an archaic word and is obviously ripe for misinterpretation.

Words don't exist in a vacuum. Every word communicated requires both a speaker and a listener, and they both have to do the job of interpreting those words. It is rude to ignore the likely interpretation of the listener when there is a less encumbered turn of phrase available.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you wouldn't mind the headline "Genocidal Holocaust: MySQL, ODBC & OpenOffice 1.0?"

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Reality Master 101]

So? That doesn't mean they're not really offended. But let's face it, some offenses are worse than others. You want to make it sound like words are completely neutral, but they're not.

Words ARE completely neutral, but intent is not. For example, black people use the word "nigger" between themselves all the time without giving offense. It's the context and intent that gives offense.

But intent is not always conscious, and in fact not always relevant.

But it's *exactly* relevent. The key point that I think you're missing is that being offended is entirely voluntary. Take gay jokes -- some gay people will be offended, and others won't. That means that the people being offended chose to be offended.

It simply is not and should not be my concern whether someone has some sort of mental problems that will misinterpret my intentions. Now, if someone is close to me and I know they are particularly sensitive to something, then I may out of politeness decide to avoid those terms. But it is absolutely not my responsibility to watch my language on the off-chance that someone might choose -- possibly intentionally -- to misinterpret me.

It's an archaic word and is obviously ripe for misinterpretation.

Perhaps, but doesn't it baldly demonstrate that certain people are LOOKING to be offended? Once the word is explained, then why would there be any further controversy?

And where do I stop? Do I not use the word "dastardly" around someone born out of wedlock because it sounds like "bastardly"? Do I never use the word "God" because it might offend an atheist? Do I not mention that I bought some "spic-and-span" around Italian people? And let's not even get into the absolute stupidity of terms like "differently abled" rather than handicapped (and yes, I use the latter word proudly).

The insanity will never stop, and I refuse to be held hostage to people who will take offense at anything I say. I say again, the ONLY measure that has to matter is intent.

I were an intelligent racist (how I wish that were a simple oxymoron), I would realize that I could say a lot of the things I mean without actually saying them.

Exactly. It's the intent that matters. People generally know when someone is trying to insult them. The words are irrelevent. In fact, just a look can insult someone. It's the intent of the look that counts.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

By your logic, critique is censorship just because people will be afraid of being critiqued and therefore not speak. That's BS.
And you, my friend, how can you critisize his opinion? It is totaly irresponsible, you suppress his rights to complain, you bastard!. You should never write such a BS. I, myself, would never do anything like you did. Wait a minute...

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Slime-dogg]

How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion?

Because you can get fired from your job for saying the "Un-PC" statement. With Political Correctness, you are no more free than the citizens of Communist Russia. There you couldn't speak your mind because you might end up in prison. Here, it's a slightly different story. You can't speak your mind (or even make a mistake in speech) without being crucified by society.

Atlantic Monthly had a nice list of words that have been stricken from school textbooks. Among them were 'Yacht' and 'Cassandra.' 'Yacht' was banned because it was "descriminant against non-wealthy persons," and 'Cassandra' was banned because it's "sexist."

Can anyone tell me how all this shit got to the rediculous level it is at right now? We have some froppish, underfed, vegetarian, neo-leftist leech telling the people of America which words are appropriate and which ones aren't! It is 100% pure, unadulturated bullshit, and you all know it.

All that aside, PC speech doesn't really fit into things of a really sensitive nature. It takes a lot of balls and insensitivity to make jokes about the holocaust, mostly because it just wasn't funny. The Trail of Tears was also a very serious matter, and thus should only be used when referring to the actual event.

Now, persuasive speech promotes the use of extremes, but that's where common sense comes into play. If there's a guy who doesn't have enough sense not to name a computer configuration article after an event that stands for unjust death, an informing of the seriousness is in order. It is inappropriate, however, to censor him, axe the article, or socially crucify him. Some people are just stupid.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> It was brutal and painful, and something that Americans don't like to talk about.
> Isn't that a good reason to use it?

Only when several thousand users are forced to do this integration work against their will, and die from doing it. Then you'd have an appropriate analogy.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've used "Trail of tears" as a general comment for any hard task in the past.

The ToT was a "hard task" in the same manner as the Bataan Death March. I'd suggest not using that as a title unless you're writing about the forced death of several thousand people.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Zak3056]

I mean, what next, "Linux Networking: 9/11 All Over Again"?

I feel a /bin/laden joke coming on...

Re:trail of tears?

[JohnnyBolla]

Innocent of what? We could also stop posting in English, it's what was used by those dirty oppressors.
I think maybe, just maybe, you are taking yourself too seriously. Just a thought.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really the world you want where the idiots who get offended decide who gets lynched (word used intentionally)?
Did you use word idiot??? Can you use term mongolo-american instead? Please, do not insult me and the population minority - actualy, majority - I belong to.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[feed_me_cereal]

Yeah, I said it's BS to complain about criticizing an opion, which makes it perfectly ok for me to do so. No hypocrisy there.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Jack9]

it's important to understand that offense is in the eye of the offended, not the offender. - is exactly right. Words are nuetral and more often then not, we are informed as to what is offensive because there is no classical way to define what is offensive. Being offended as it is a combination of emotional elements not just a social construct...although to be fair, there are social offenses that are entirely that, confusing the issue further. I'm pretty much impossible to offend, but not invulnerable. Sometimes I am surprised that a video of a kitten getting it's head bashed in doesn't bother me, but I have to make a bit of time and stop a child from digging the eyes out of a live bird with a stick, because it makes me upset (although I'm over it now). That's not a choice I consciously make...hell it's not even a scenario I ever thought I'd encounter. I'd advise you not to make blanket statements about how people feel or do not feel, as it quickly becomes a dictation on how you think the world should be viewed. If someone took charge to rule the world, it would still be fucked up, just in different ways.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I not mention that I bought some "spic-and-span" around Italian people?

The Italians might not mind, but it's sure to piss off the Spics.

And let's not even get into the absolute stupidity of terms like "differently abled" rather than handicapped (and yes, I use the latter word proudly).

Damn right! After reading your post, I'd say you have every right to be proud of being handicapped.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

I scanned the posts to see if someone would make this point. I'm glad someone did. So I thought up my responce and scanned some more, only to find this. I would have used slightly different words such as, "I'm not a big fan of Political Correctness ...", but thought for thought, you wrote what I was gping to.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's really fucking funny. Here are two people trying to have an honest and serious discussion about something important, and you chime in with two stupid, smarmy comments. It's dicks like you that ruin Slashdot for the rest of us. Your a jerk; please refrain from further posts in this space.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[DChristensen]

I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that).

Nah, some PC guy already wants you to use C#...

billg

Re:Trail of Tears?

[WNight]

There's a relatively simple test to determine how much you right-to-be-offended you deserve based on how close you are to a trajedy.

1) Did it happen before you were born?
Y: 0%

2) Did it happen to someone you've never met?
Y: 0%

You can choose either to be an individual, or just a part of a larger stereotype.

You can either be you, SalesGeek, an unique person, who has his own hobbies, his own skills, his own friends, or you can be "An Indian". If you accept the first, you aren't allowed to claim any trajedy that didn't directly affect you. If you choose the second, you're entitled to claim Little-Big-Horn as a personal trajedy, but you also accept whatever other racial stereotypes someone wants to heep on you.

You *can't* have it both ways. What do you want to be, you, or "just another indian"?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[feed_me_cereal]

How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion?

Because you can get fired from your job for saying the "Un-PC" statement.

What kind of "Un-PC" statement can you get fired for, exactly? Any? Be careful how you classify things. I highly doubt you could get fired for somethign like this trail of tears analogy, I assume what you ARE talking about is sexual harrasment or calling your co-worker a nigger or something like that. In which case, you obviously lack the ability to imagine yourself in someone elses position. The reason people don't want assholes harrasing female co-workers is because it's very hard for someone to be productive when they are belittled constantly by someone historically handed a dominant position. You think it doesn't still happen today? If so, you obviously have never faced consequences of this shit, but it dosen't mean others don't. There's a difference between "being PC" and making someone's life hell. It's the difference between being an ass and harassment.

With Political Correctness, you are no more free than the citizens of Communist Russia. here you couldn't speak your mind because you might end up in prison. Here, it's a slightly different story. You can't speak your mind (or even make a mistake in speech) without being crucified by society

We're not talking about cencership laws here, actually, the right to give your opinion!!! If you're not even allowed to feel offended then we're MUCH worse off then communist russia! Slightly different than prison? I hear people saying "un-pc" stuff all the time and nothing ever happens to them. There's a difference between not being PC and threatening or harassing someone.

As for the "mistake in a speech getting you cruicified", I must assume you're speaking of our friend Trent Lott. I bet you think I applauded what happened after his slip about how all of our "problems" would have been solved by having a dixie-crat president during the push for civil-rights? Actually, I thought it was blown out of proportion, but jesus, what kind of standard do you expect for the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE?!?!! Your image does matter there. This isn't getting fired from your job or some other bullshit you mentioned. It's "not getting promoted to one of the most powerful positions in the country", and it was the republicans that pulled him out (mostly because he was a big liability anyway, this was just a good excuse)

Can anyone tell me how all this shit got to the rediculous level it is at right now? We have some froppish, underfed, vegetarian, neo-leftist leech telling the people of America which words are appropriate and which ones aren't! It is 100% pure, unadulturated bullshit, and you all know it.


Who exactly are you talking to? You just made about 80 ridiculous assumptions about me. I probably hate hippies even more than you do since people so often lump me together with those zealotous megolomaniacs.

All that aside, PC speech doesn't really fit into things of a really sensitive nature. It takes a lot of balls and insensitivity to make jokes about the holocaust, mostly because it just wasn't funny. The Trail of Tears was also a very serious matter, and thus should only be used when referring to the actual event.

I agree 100%

Now, persuasive speech promotes the use of extremes, but that's where common sense comes into play. If there's a guy who doesn't have enough sense not to name a computer configuration article after an event that stands for unjust death, an informing of the seriousness is in order.

Still agreeing

It is inappropriate, however, to censor him, axe the article, or socially crucify him.

hmm? I said that? I hope you're just adding in a point and not accusing me of this, cause that's basically the opposite of what I was trying to say.

Some people are just stupid

That's always a truth! :)

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your a jerk; please refrain from further posts in this space. "
Um, just curious... has that EVER worked?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

The treatment of the Cherokee peoples truley highlight the hipocracy in the policies of the US government during the western expansion.

It is good to review such things and remember that they can happen again. We always need to be on a lookout for our freedom.

Some points about the "Tail of Tears":

1) Native Americans were placed on reservations in the west to facilitate expansion, i.e. less indians in the way. So why move an east coast people out west?

2) The reservation was promoted as a mechinism where Native culturs could be integrated into the developing "American" culture. The Cherokee were already well integrated into Western ways.

3) The reservation was a place to introduce Christianity, but many Cherokee were already Christians.

4) With Native Americans on reservations, education would be much easier. Funny thing is, the Cherokee were well educated, maybe more then their European neighbors.

It all comes down to money. Get the Cherokee off valubale land in Virginia and put them in a desert. Of course no one knew how valuable that desert would become ... oil!

Re:Trail of Tears?

[GlassHeart]

Words ARE completely neutral, [...] It's the context and intent that gives offense.

It simply is not and should not be my concern whether someone has some sort of mental problems that will misinterpret my intentions.

You make some good points. I completely agree that language by itself is neutral. It is simply a medium for a message.

However, it is incorrect for a sender to disclaim all responsibility in communication. For example, you can't speak "normal" English to somebody who doesn't understand it well. You speak more slowly, using simpler words, and perhaps pronounce each word more clearly.

Note that I'm not saying it's the sender's fault that English is not understood. It's not a matter of fault. However, if your intention is to communicate, then you must speak the common language and choose the right words, or you will fail.

And where do I stop?

Indeed, some people can be very sensitive. However, as long as you sincerely wish to communicate and have some common sense, I'm sure you will be successful without having to say "vertically challenged".

Re:Trail of Tears?

[wytcld]

The expression "trail of tears" predated the Cherokee forced march. The idea that once a common expression is applied to something, that something henceforth acquires primary ownership of said expression is the same logic by which Microsoft owns "windows".

There are also "final solutions" both before and after the Holocaust that have nothing to do with it. Similarly "niggardly" has never had any meaning connected with skin color. If there were a Cherokee expression which applied solely to the "Trail of Tears" then indeed it would be insensitive to use it for anything else not equally tragic. But to ask users of standard English not run all phrases of standard English through some sort of sensitivity checker prior to use is just another way of enforcing the Christian notion of original sin on everybody. Surely at least some friends of the Cherokees have a few doubts left about the Christian worldview?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[flwombat]

Geez, WNight, haven't you heard? Simplistic black-and-white approaches to complex problems are ALWAYS 100% WRONG!!!

Seriously though, your algorithm is flawed in many ways. It seems to be predicated on the conceit that events occuring before one's birth can have no negative (or positive?) effect on one's life, which I'm pretty sure is incorrect.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Doctor Fishboy]

I think you've missed my point in my original post. In Britain we don't get taught American history. Hence, as a foreigner in America, the phrase ToT does not have the resonance and meaning in Britain that it does in America.

> I'd suggest not using that as a title unless you're writing about the forced death of several thousand people.

Indeed. I'll consider that from now on.

Dr Fish

Re:Trail of Tears?

[plague3106]

And apparently you are doing your part to keep it so. Thanks.

i didn't say i actively went out of my way to not be nice either. Quite the contrary.

But i'm going to speak my opinion. Adults can handle that, and will get over any offense. Lets be real now; you determine how something affects you. You can let it bother you and bring you down, or take it in stride and realize its not the end of the world and continue with your life.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[plague3106]

Nothing wrong with having feelings. Just don't get blown all out of whack because someone says something you don't like.

If you have time to worry about the title of a /. story, you probably don't have many problems to begin with.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with being socially outcasted for saying unpopular things? You're not being arrested, imprisoned, or otherwise harrassed by our government.

People make careers out of saying unpopular things, simply because of the shock it generates. E.g. "Savage Nation" or Howard Stern or other radio shock-jocks. They're just a little more crafty how they present it, and have a vehicle for disseminating their views to those who are receptive.

Imagine the press I'd get if I put up a billboard that said "ABORTION IS FUN!" or "REPUBLICANS SUCK". It goes both ways. People would be pissed. I'd be soaking in lots of glorious attention!

Don't pin this as a leftist thing. Plenty of right-wingers were calling for blood after Patty Murray (D-WA) made a comment about bin Laden's public image in the middle east. This was right after the Lott fiasco, so some Republicans took it as an opportunity for vengeance. And I can't count the number of times Michael Savage has called people traitors for their views (and being a traitor inherently means the government should censor them, somehow).

And frankly, people should never talk about religion or politics at work. It's just unprofessional, not to mention incredibly annoying. Being fired for your views is wrong, but you're probably a pig-headed blowhard to begin with if you spout off about your personal take on the external world during work hours -- left or right.

Anonymous on slashdot is OKIE DOKIE though!!

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rational point of view is to examine the intent of an act? No, intent is only one aspect of an act. When determining offence, you have to examine the consequences of an act. Offences such as reckless endangerment and manslaughter don't involve predetirmination, but are grave offences nonetheless. And if you kill somebody, for instance, by doing something that shows a wanton disregard for human life, you might find yourself convicted of murder in the second degree. The jury will be asked to consider the intent of your actions, and try to understand your state of mind, but the prosecuting attorneys will insist that the jury ask themselves if there was a reasonable expectation that your actions could cause harm. Your actual state of mind is only part of the equation. Assuming that you are of sound mind, you are expected to behave as if you care about the consequences of your actions.

So, come again, what's the intent in this case? To make a software installation sound arduous? That's coarse. Anybody who knows the history of genocide in America will be offended. That's reasonable. Presumably the original poster wasn't offended, but it's reasonable to expect that others will be.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trail of tears.
Where people who don't cry, cried.
I don't think *anybody* has ever been politically correct about it. I have no good idea what would be politically correct.
However, I suspect the worst we can do is to *ignore* it. So any reference, even hyperbole serves a purpose.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Reality Master 101]

The rational point of view is to examine the intent of an act?

No, the rational point of view is to examine the intent of speech that offends (the subject at hand). I never said anything about physical acts. The fact is that no one suffers physical harm from offensive words.

Now, there is such a principle as "fighting words", which can be illegal. But again, it goes back to intent. If I go up to someone and launch into an insulting diatribe and cause a fight, then I could be liable for starting the fight. On the other hand, if I say something innocently and someone starts beating on me because of their misunderstanding, then I will absolutely NOT be liable, and the other guy goes to jail.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely incorrect. Holocaust has a very strong meaning tied to a recent worldwide historical event. "Trail of Tears" in the historical sense is an arcane and generally unknown usage, certainly outside of the US. Not recognizing this as an international forum isn't very PC.
In addition, genocides have occurred throughout history, the 20th century being particularly rich in them. It's a bit Orwellian to expect that everyone must be totally aware of every atrocity worldwide and traverse the minefield of language to avoid offense. (Was 'minefield' OK?)
Though both acts were despicable atrocities, the names don't carry close to the same weight and connotations.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're saying implies no one can identify with any group.

What the hell is that?

Hi, I'm an American. A male. A masturbator. Yes, there are stereotypes about these groups. Do all of them apply to me? NO. Am I still a unique person even if I identify with Americans, males, and masturbators? YES.

So even though I don't know anyone from World War I, nor does it "directly" effect me, it's still very relevant to us American Male Masturbators. Maybe not so much on the masturbation side, however. But you get the point.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[clare-ents]

How about a fantastical filme about hobbits called the two towers? I can't believe they thought they'd get away with that.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would make you a Wap, a Dago being a Spaniard, despite what you Yanks think.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[salesgeek]

1) Did it happen before you were born?

With that attitude, we are doomed to repeat history again.

2) Did it happen to someone you've never met?
Of course it did. But the scar from the wound is still there.

You can either be you, SalesGeek, an unique person, who has his own hobbies, his own skills, his own friends, or you can be "An Indian".
I am not from India and therefore not an Indian. Do you still refer to people of African decent as "Niggers"? On has to assume so since the term "Indian" is just as insulting and poisonous.

I am both myself and I am Native American, too, just as you come from the culture of your parents. I choose to honor my roots to the extent it is possible. One of those roots is the legacy left by the way my people were virtually wiped out and assimilated into the American culture.

You *can't* have it both ways. What do you want to be, you, or "just another indian"?

I can have it both ways. I am myself, and part of myself comes from my family. To deny who I am and my roots is to deny myself. And you are simply another racist appologist trying to justify your inability to accept diversity.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[KevinH456]

while I agree that political correctness can get out of hand, the trail of tears is specifically this march and slaughter of native americans. When someone says the trail of tears, what immediately is conjured up is this horrible event in history and not much else. Where as it would be nitpicky for someone to say "I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that)." when C holds a completely different meaning to all of us. While not neccesarily a horible usage of the trail of tears, I think it was in bad taste and something else should have been used instead.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[WNight]

Isn't the rule about black and white rules 100% wrong then?

This is pretty simple. Are you allowed to claim something as a great personal trajedy and be *personally* offended? I'm not Jewish, nor was I alive during WW2, but I can realize the holocaust was tragic. That doesn't mean though, that I find it offensive to me, when someone mentions it in what I feel is too light a tone.

I don't think you can claim something to be personally offensive unless you yourself lived through it, are otherwise very closely connected. If not, you aren't much more strongly affected than anyone else.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[WNight]

I am not from India and therefore not an Indian. Do you still refer to people of African decent as "Niggers"? On has to assume so since the term "Indian" is just as insulting and poisonous.

Oh grow up. I am white, but I grew up with a half indian sister and full-indian step-mom and they used the term "Indian". The whole town, of both colors, used the term. It's technically incorrect but that doesn't make it in any way offensive. Unless you wish to get into tribe name it's actually pretty reasonable.

As for insulting and poisonous. Wow, you are *exactly* one of the people I was referring to. If there's a negative stereotype attached to Indian, it'll be there regardless of term. Does the KKK hate blacks less now that society uses the term "African American". Did anyone's life change when "black" fell out of use and that awkward title started being used, or "People of African Descent" as you seem to prefer.

Indian wasn't originally coined as in insult, And it's at least as accurate as "Native American". Hell, I'm a Native American. Born and raised here.

Your ancestors weren't harmed at all by "American Culture". They were harmed by men with guns who wanted their land. Happens all the time. You need to get over it. Various of my ancestors were killed by other people's ancestors. Neither I, nor my Danish friends (as one example of many) had anything to do with it, so it seems a little silly to be offended by it. In fact, I recognize your ancestors tragedy to be as tragic as my ancestors tragedy. If they were here right now, they'd deserve the right to bitch about how terrible their life is because of it. Neither of us would though.

And you are simply another racist appologist trying to justify your inability to accept diversity.

Oh grow up. You're not being diverse, you're being whiny. And I'm not being racist, I'm being insensitive. I'd say this even to someone of my own skin color, or to a woman who felt personally slighted by gender-related issues that never happened to her, and so on.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[WNight]

Fine, identify with the group. That's not the issue. The issue is claiming past events that happened to that group as if they happened to you.

You know they used to do nasty things to masturbators to keep them from "self-abusing". You likely feel as I do, that it was pointless, cruel, and misguided. But you shouldn't feel personally injured.

Ditto with WW2, many people of the classes Men, Women, German, English, Jewish, etc, died. While I am part of many of these groups, it's not a personal tragedy because I wasn't there. This doesn't mean I can't learn from it. I don't have to ignore history. In fact, my desire to have these *not* be my tragedy is a fairly effective teaching aid.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[error0x100]

Powerful words should be used carefully, otherwise their glib use leaves our language impoverished and trivialized

I've noticed the same interesting phenomenon with the word "apartheid", and the result has been a weakening of the word over time since 1994. Apartheid was an extremely brutal form of racist oppression, which resulted in thousands of deaths, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of families torn apart, and the suffering of millions. But people initially began to associate the word more strongly with "plain old" segregation, as if it were on a level similar to segregation in the USA under Jim Crow law up until the 1960s, as well as the pre-apartheid segregation in South Africa.

Part of the reason for the weakening of the word is that because of government control of the media, most white SAns actually never knew (and still don't know) just how bad apartheid really was. Most white SAns still think of it as little more than segregation.

Lately, I've started to see the word apartheid very often used metaphorically to describe almost any separation of two entities. The word is also used now to describe almost any oppressive system.

Apartheid was a unique thing. There was nothing else in history quite like apartheid, it has no direct comparisons to anything else, and by watering down the word, this uniqueness is de-emphasized, and no longer conveys the specific South African experience. One of the overtly ill effects of the weakening of this word is that many people now still think apartheid was little more than a form of segregation.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[blaine]

You do realize that you're just as bad as the PC police that you seem to hate, don't you?

I don't think people need to walk on eggshells just to not offend people. But at the same time, going to the other extreme is equally as bad. You're basically preaching "fuck anyone else, if they ever say I said something obnoxious they're just too goddamn PC!!" And that's pretty sad.

And I defy you to point out anywhere in the english language that "The Trail of Tears" has had any meaning prior to the event in question. It's a specific reference to a specific event, and would be just as obnoxious as comparing a company laying people off to the mass murder and cremation of jews at Auschwitz. If you can't see that, then you've devolved so far into anti-PC zealotry that you're beyond hope.

But whatever. I should stop feeding trolls.

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's natural human nature to identify with a larger group. It is impossible for us to break free of this. It's herd mentality.

Yes, it'd be nice if we evolved beyond the need for tribes/groups/whatever, but the fact is, we depend on one another to survive, and have the tendency to form an "us vs. them" attitude in nearly everything we do. Yes, it'd be nice if this weren't the case, but it's innate human nature, just like the need for acceptance, power, and attention.

It's because people identify with groups that causes so many problems. Americans, males, and masturbators are all still persecuted by someone in the world. Whether it be foreign powers, overwrought women, or fundamentalists (of any religion), other groups seek to destroy or harm my group.

You mention the KKK in another post. That group is living in its past. It's feeding off its past. Just the same that multiculturalism feeds off its past leaders such as MLK.

It's a tragedy that the holocaust ever happend. I don't know of anyone personally who was involved. But if I were Jewish, I would feel very threatened by current Nazis living in the past, feeding on hate.

The wars in the Baltics. Tribal wars in Africa. Our continued resentment of the French. It's always, always, "us vs. them" resurfacing because of our history.

We're stuck with the "us vs. them" mentality for a long, long time, until gene therapy can knock out the violence and the need to find something strong to guide us. We're instinctively wired up for it. Religions. Nations. Voting parties. All that. It's just our nature, and our history, that creates these groups!

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

As offensive as this might be to Native Americans, it should also be offensive to anyone who values language. It would be nice if not every term describing something exceptional was adopted to describe the mundane. It destroys people's sense of proportion How can you talk about significant events when the terms you properly could use now describe a new diet cola, or pop singer, or the mild inconvenience some whiny tech writer experienced using a piece of software? You end up saying stupid things like "nothing like this has ever happened before", or "this is unprecedented", or "noone has ever suffered like this." How long until 9/11 refers to an unfortunate fashion decision?

Re:Trail of Tears?

[Planesdragon]

But to ask users of standard English not run all phrases of standard English through some sort of sensitivity checker prior to use is just another way of enforcing the Christian notion of original sin on everybody. Surely at least some friends of the Cherokees have a few doubts left about the Christian worldview?

HEY!

If you're going to lump all Christians in, you should at least only compare them to as unfair a lumping--that being _all_ native americans, and not just the Cherokee.

Original Sin is defying God, and Jesus of Nazaraeth, who was Christ the Word of God, gave his life to pay it back for all people. Or in other words, the darn deed is done, and we can forget it except as an answer to "what did God ever do for us?"

And, while I'm ranting, sensitivity is only Christian by association. We are bade to love all men as our brothers, and that might mean be nice to them--but it also might mean that we should be honest, and rude, and forthright with them. I feel personally that I have a God-given right to offend people, and I trust that He will let me know if I'm wrong.

If anything, curbing your language because of senitivity is a lie and a deciet and is on that list of things that really should get you kicked out of the Christos-Club.

MySQL haiku: get it right

[Craig Shergold]

Install MySQL?
Better get support contract
Config files scattered

That's "my es cue el", my friend, not "my sequel". This first line has six syllables according to Monty...

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[Chocolate Teapot]

Petty nitpicker
You spoiled the joke entirely
I thought it was good.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[byolinux]

Is it? Am I the only person who says 'Sequel' for SQL? I heard a guy say 'Squil' once, that was really odd.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[gbjbaanb]

When will people start calling SQL 'SQuirreL' ?

sounds much nicer, and fluffier, to me; and besides, where else would you long-term persist your nuts except in a Database! ;-)

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[idontgno]

Is it? Am I the only person who says 'Sequel' for SQL? I heard a guy say 'Squil' once, that was really odd.

"Sequel" seems to be a very popular pronounciation, but I don't like it because it collides with the name of an old commercial DBMS (which ,if I recall correctly, supported SQL).

I tried pronouncing it "squeal", which I though was appropriate with most of the DBMSs I worked with. (Some made the system squeal in pain; the others made me squeal.) I gave up on that pronounciation, though; I got tired of explaining it.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[seanmeister]

You think that's odd? I've got a co-worker who pronounces EVERY three-letter file extension as though it was a word. "BMP" = "bump"... "DBF" = "dibbif".. you get the idea. I've been thinking about getting him a Mac just so he'd run out of things to say.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[dcuny]

I thought that QL was pronounced "quell", and SQL "sequel", as both an homage and a terrible pun.

That the fine MySQL people have chosen to pronounce it wrong is their own choice. Heck, some people can't even decide if the 'S' stands for Structured or Standard.

As for me an my house, we choose sequel, since it has nice hacker resonance.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[EvilTwinSkippy]

So what program is FUD registered to. I know it's somewhere in Windows, I just can't fund it...

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[ceeam]

Considering that in Cyrillic "y" is "u" (oo) many people call MySQL "muscle" (moo-school).

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[The Cydonian]

You think that's odd? A professor out here actually invented distinct pronounciations for car, cdr, caar, cddr, cadr all other variations which may or may not be listed here.

Re:MySQL haiku: get it right

[Hognoxious]

Am I the only person who says 'Sequel' for SQL?

No, but every one is one too many.

A sequel means a book or film that's the same as another one, except it's not as good.

Re:OLE DB??

[sandman_eh]

Yeah lets screw open standards.

Admittely ODBC is/was gennerally improved AFAICT by microsoft, it is essentially still an X/Open standard.

It is availble on many platforms, Mac/VMS/Unix/Windows and probably others too. It is a relative striaghtforward C API for database access. Ok, native access could be quicker but I think you'd find difficulty building a thinner layer for all databse engines.

Lets be honest about this two in many cases I reckon you will find OLE DB implement on top of the ODBC drivers . Not that I've ever used OLE DB being a crossplatform developer.

Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[yoz]

Two points:

1: The writer of the piece, talking about his install troubles, is a Linuxworld columnist. Now, this may not give them kernel-developer-like skills, but...

2: ... how leet should Linux users be before they can install an MS Access equivalent? On Windows, you can do it with a few clicks. It sounds like you want the Linux equivalent to come with a 10-page exam.

-- Yoz

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[jgerman]

how leet should Linux users be before they can install an MS Access equivalent? On Windows, you can do it with a few clicks

Yes and the few click method generally leaves security holes wide enough to drive a bus through. That method is obviously working.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... I didn't have any problems, and my name's monkey boy.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[sporty]

It sounds like you want the Linux equivalent to come with a 10-page exam.

4 pages max. Unless it was an essay.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[j_kenpo]

I agree with you totally on both points. If the guy is a Linuxworld columnist, he probably has at least a basic understanding of the technical side of Linux and Linux app installs (there's not telling really, since he is a columnist, and in my opinion the old saying about those who cant teach applies more to columnist than to teachers these days). With that being said, if someone who has at least a basic understanding of Linux has that much difficulty installing something like this, than "Joe Sixpack" isn't going to be able to figure it out either. But this goes into the age old problem with Linux on the desktop, do the developers keep the mentality of "If you don't like it, fix it yourself, its open source", or do they take the mentality of "Well, I can figure it out, and the next developer can figure it out, but can the average person figure it out?" Once OS developers look at it in the later fashion, then we will start seeing real gains as far as usability. IMHO, that's the difference between Computer Science graduates and Information Systems graduates, one sees things in the more technical side, the other sees it in the usability (business wise, if its easier to use and provides functionality, then its more marketable) side. And ill make the assumption that most OS developers are CS people. Id be interested to hear others opinions on this.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

... how leet should Linux users be before they can install an MS Access equivalent? On Windows, you can do it with a few clicks. It sounds like you want the Linux equivalent to come with a 10-page exam.

Please, don't include an MCSE. Please! Don't we have enough problems as it is?! :-)

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[smillie]

When I was doing coding one of the most difficult things to find was a newbie who was willing to let me watch them use my new program. I could learn a lot by watching someone do something "intuitive" and my code wouldn't behave as they expected. Each time I modified the user interface I had to find a new newbie because the old ones now had preconceived ideas on how it worked. The next problem was that one person wasn't a very large sample. As a normal geed I didn't have all that many friends to draw on.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[damiam]

"Joe Sixpack" isn't going to be able to figure it out either

I agree that it should be simpler to set up, but does Joe Sixpack really need to be designing databases?

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[j_kenpo]

"I agree that it should be simpler to set up, but does Joe Sixpack really need to be designing databases?"

Absolutly, if Joe Sixpack works for a small freight, delivery or trucking company and needs to keep a small database of shipping, customers, destinations, and other small business related matters. Ive seen plenty of smaller companies (1 to 2 offices and handfull of employees) who do this with Access (mostly by means of the pre-built databases and templates, or a consultant/tech set one up for them). This is my point right here, instead of the "why would they" or the "should they be" mind set, it should be percieved from the "Ok, they are going to, so how can I make it easier for them".

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[yoz]

Yes and the few click method generally leaves security holes wide enough to drive a bus through. That method is obviously working.

No, poor security design generally leaves security holes wide enough to drive a bus through. Fast, easy installers with secure defaults generally leave happy users with less hair torn out and less anger at ivory-tower developers who think you should already know a piece of software inside and out before being allowed to install it.

Since when did usability design equate to wide-open holes, apart from in the minds of those who think spending two hours hand-editing a makefile is a vital entry requirement for those who want to use basic office software?

-- Yoz

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they should get me in, I'll do a propper job and they'll help support OSS.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did usability design equate to wide-open holes, apart from in the minds of those who think spending two hours hand-editing a makefile is a vital entry requirement for those who want to use basic office software?

Since MS decided that "usability" meant enabling boatloads of automatic application execution without the user's knowledge or permission. Granted, that's mostly MS bungling, but that's where the impression comes from.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[aratas]

Because if you didn't make the simple install insecure, the user would complain that "feature X" doesn't work. Well, of course it doesn't work. Security doesn't allow you to do something stupid like that.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[huckda]

the most difficult things to find was a newbie

I have a classroom full of them...Here we call them 'Freshmen'...and to them the word 'intuitive' has something to do with the number 2 inside something...this year they are pretty dense.

So might I suggest that when looking for newbies, hit up the local high school freshmen =)

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever used an OpenBSD patch or port? I think not. You might have to type two or three standard commands (like 'make; make install') because OpenBSD is non GUI driven. But's a three steps process nontheless.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[endeitzslash]

With that being said, if someone who has at least a basic understanding of Linux has that much difficulty installing something like this, than "Joe Sixpack" isn't going to be able to figure it out either.

I wonder what kind of beer "Joe Sixpack" drinks?

Probably Duff. . .er Bud.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

Jeez -

Even my Mom tries (somewhat successfully) to use databases. She's got a half a dozen "databases" set up in MS Works (not even Access) that are basically glorified spreadsheets, but with reporting, filtering etc built right into easy to find buttons. They are mainly things that she used to keep in Excel or even in Word (lists of phone numbers, Little League rosters, AAUW stuff...) but she's figured out that a database is really what she needs.

Once users understand how useful databases can be, it becomes part of their "I can't get rid of Windows because Linux doesn't have this" justification.

You do have to hand it to Microsoft for creating ODBC and really promoting the ability to separate your front-end from your database. You could just as easily connect Access to SQLServer as Oracle. Compare that to the old dBase and FoxPro days.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[GlassHeart]

that's the difference between Computer Science graduates and Information Systems graduates, one sees things in the more technical side, the other sees it in the usability [...] side.

I'll ignore your overgeneralization about degrees. It isn't true. For every cool command-line tool there are probably six GUI front-ends to make it easier to use. Are you saying that the CS people are making the CLI stuff exclusively, and the IS people are making the GUI stuff exclusively?

In a commercial software endeavor, poor usability is ultimately represented by poor sales. This causes management to hire experts to ensure that engineering doesn't just produce whatever it wants. On the other hand, a healthy organization also doesn't allow usability to trump everything, especially development schedules.

In a free software environment, feedback is less apparent. First of all, it's cheap to download stuff, so the threshold for decision is not "is this worth $699?" but "is this worth the download time?" If it sucks, most people just delete it and move on with their lives.

As an example, a simple game I wrote had over 1,000 downloads, and about 10 responses good and bad. What are the other 99 out of 100 people doing with my program? What features do they want? I don't know. The ironic downside of being free is that people aren't angry enough to complain if it sucks.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[cmacb]

The problem with "Joe Sixpack" using a tool like this goes way beyond the installation step.

Every time I've seen a novice set up a "database" application using Access or any similar product it has only taken a few weeks to discover that the system has serious design flaws and bugs.

If a standalone Acess database is involved they almost always discover that they have more records than the system will handle with adequate performance. They get stuck when it turns out that several people need to access the data at the same time and they haven't figured out how to lock records.

Using Access or an Access-like program with ODBC is better, but not by much. Most non-programmers don't really understand the concept of joining tables, or the concept of matching real data with null values, or the ramifications of locking data for update while putting an editing screen up for the end user.

The "nice" thing about hooking up and RDBMS to an end user tool like Access or Excel is that you can bring a database server to its knees with only a few random clicks. Good for testing your backend setup, not too good for doing something useful with a database.

As far as *ease* of setup goes, the last time I installed Access and made it talk to a remote Oracle database I don't remember it being any easier than setting up MySQL and a PHP/Web front end. I've never played with the Open Office front end though.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is for and by the elite.

Fool.

How un PC of them

[scotay]

Joe Barr shows us how to get ODBC, MySQL and OpenOffice to treat each other with respect.

MySQL and ODBC, living together in perfect harmony

They should have called it:

Ebony and Ivory: MySQL, ODBC & OpenOffice 1.0

Re:OLE DB??

[Malc]

Ahh yes, is that why some of DB connections where I work are using the "OLE DB for ODBC" drivers?

finish the job

[Anonymous Coward]

And if we can get WordPerfect and Word on a Win box to search/find/merge from MySQL and PostgreSQL residing on a Linux box, then we'll all be in heaven.

Mail merge, it's not just for end lusers any more.

Re:OLE DB??

[gbjbaanb]

first off OLEDB is a lovely technology, much better organised than ODBC, which was good in its day, and serves a very useful purpose being a lowest-common demoninator, but OLEDB is better.

OLEDB *can* run on top of ODBC, but there are native drivers for several commercial dbs out there. No windows programmer would use OLEDB for ODBC when accessing SQL Server for instance.

However, it is MS only, so this post is a little redundant. but just FYI.

This isn't about being PC . . .

[WankersRevenge]

it's about respecting the dead.

Re:This isn't about being PC . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

One owes respect to the living. To the dead one owes only truth.

Re:This isn't about being PC . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

> One owes respect to the living. To the dead one owes only truth.

And the truth is that trivializing the experience known as "The Trail of Tears" by comparing that to the hassles of software installation is insulting to the memory of the thousands who died.

An equally good title would have been "Bataan Death March: etc".

Oh, wait, those were our boys who died on that one. Sorry, I should be more respectful, huh?..

Re:OLE DB??

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, the MS-SQL ODBC driver sits on top of OLEDB. (OLEDB being considered the 'native' driver for MS-SQL.) The realworld performance difference is probably nil.

Re:Who cares

[fishbowl]

>Are there seriously still people who don't have
>MS Office?

There are projects for which the price of MS Windows and MS Office will preclude the project being done. Such things may not matter to you, since you obviously either have working capital or are willing to compromise your ethics. What if your entire expected revenue was less than the price of that software, but the system you want to develop has value other than cash value? Because of the price of Office, you're suggesting that such a project should not even be done.

That's not your call. It's okay that there are alternatives, and that people choose to use them!

Re:Secret? ( Adabas )

[Locutus]

It's probably not unknown to those who've use the StarOffice v5.x database ( Adabas = SoftwareAG ). Granted, OO doesn't have the ODBC driver for that free Adabas database but if you've got the SO v5.x CDROM, you've got the driver.

It's working fine here.

BTW, it might not be well known that the database shipped with Sun's StarOffice 5.2( Adabas ) can be run as a multi-client database if you start the server on the right port. Here's a startup script:

x_server -p 7200
sleep 1
x_start dbaseName
sleep 2
xutil -d dbaseName -u control,user-passwd restart

StarOffice and OpenOffice just need to know where the file "./lib/odbclib.so" is. IIRC

LoB

Just Like Access? Cool!

[bellings]

It's just like Access? So, it's a form builder and a report generator, with full support for embedding standard platform components, including and compliant script engines? Just like Access does?

So, now I can script Open Office applications using Perl, Python, VBScript, JavaScript, and a slew of of less popular languages, just like Access? And I can bring in components built in any of the standard platform development environment, just like Access can use ActiveX controls?

That's incredibly cool. I'm looking forward to trying that.

Or, do you mean it's another crappy, half assed front end that looks superficially similar to Access to someone who's never bothered to use it?

Please change the title to OpenOffice.org

[Anonymous Coward]

The title is incorrect, please update and then make this posting redundant.

MySQL vs Access

[lspd]

This certainly isn't the first or last attempt to wrap a user friendly UI on top of MySQL, but I think attempts to push MySQL + a nice GUI as an Access killer are mistaken.

My own experience with Access is fairly limited, but from what work I have done with Access, it seems that the biggest benefit is entirely ignored by this and other products like The Kompany's Data Architect. Access lets you take everything (data, reports, forms, queries, etc) and shove it all into a single portable file. Burning a copy to CD-R or Floppy is a snap, and it seems to be much easier for the clueless to wrap their heads around the idea of a database + reports + forms as a single file. I tried to sell a non-profit organization on the idea of MySQL + custom interfaces as a replacement to their quirky Access databases and they were completely unplussed by the idea.

It seems like such a simple idea to combine perl or Python forms, HTML, XML or PDF reports, and Data into a single gzipped file (maybee even a file that runs on it's own without any third party software other than a perl or python interpriter.) I don't get why so much effort seems to be directed at making MySQL user friendly instead. MySQL seems like complete overkill as an Access replacement. GNutrition is a good example of this problem.. Why in the world do you need a MySQL server for something so simple?

Re:MySQL vs Access

[Compuser]

There is more to this than a single file. I recall being a summer intern in a corp and I was assigned a task that required some basic database design. Unfortunately I had no clue about SQL or anything like that, but I needed to do the job anyway (with Access). I read in the manual that you could do all programming visually and never enter a single SQL statement. Wouldn't you know it that was true. Everything I needed to do, I did by pointing and clicking, no SQL programming.
I doubt OO thingy has that level of polish, though if it does then it really is an Access level piece of software.

Re:MySQL vs Access

[rherbert]

I think you mean "transportable," not "portable." It's highly unlikely that you'll get that sucker to work on anything but a Microsoft system with the same (or maybe a newer) version of Access.

Re:MySQL vs Access

[KenSeymour]

The end user may not see this as a problem.

If you tell them "The problem with Access is that it doesn't run on Linux or any other non-Windows operating system."

They will reply "The problem with Linux is that it doesn't run Access."

Your average person doesn't care too much about operating systems.
Computer professionals do.

Re:MySQL vs Access

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I've been packaging MySQL and a copy of the TclHttpd to create a local web server that can be run under Linux and Windows. The user just opens a web browser to "localhost" and does what he/she/it needs to.

To tie several apps together, set one up as a master. For applications that will really only be talking to themselves I will sometimes use an embedded DB engine called Sqlite. It runs directly in your application making it too damn fast to be funny.

Re:OLE DB??

[zorglubxx]

I wont be happy until I can access my database via DDE ! DDE rulez!

Access alternative?

[dcuny]

The link to the actual document is here, or you could just check Google.

This document has been around forever; I could have sworn that I found it in the first place via Slashdot.

I was looking at it a couple months ago to see if it would make a possible replacement for Access. It appeared that OpenOffice could give a nice frontend for simple forms, but not much beyond that. I didn't want to mess with ODBC, and wasn't about to install MySQL on my work machine.

Access is great for single user desktop applications, but it doesn't really scale that well, even with SQL support.

VB is normally the tool of choice, but I'm caught between the .EXE version becoming obsolete, and our organization not being ready to jump onto the .NET bandwagon.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's new with it in the next OpenOffice release.

Hidden database features?

[henben]

Hmmm, hidden database integration features that most users don't even know they have installed? Does this sound like a bad idea to anyone? It sounds like the helpful scripting/macro 'features' that cause so much trouble with MS Office. Could someone writes some kind of worm to exploit this? Maybe an OpenOffice document that wrecks your local database?

I don't know anything about OpenOffice's security model, mind you, so I could be talking rubbish.

Re:Hidden database features?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Of course your worm would have to either know ahead of time the proper ODBC source, or seek it out, and hope the user associated with the database has been granted any rights to actually modify the data.

Much simpler to stick to MS office. More bang for your buck. Why settled for a DB user when you can OWN! the box.

On Red Hat, with PostgreSQL...

[Micah]

connecting OOo with PG via unixODBC was very, very simple. Yes, it involved editing a couple files -- /etc/odbc.ini and odbcinst.ini, but you have templates and you just need to edit them. Of course, you don't even need to edit config files anymore -- use ODBCConfig. It's all there, assuming you do a full RH8 install.

However, I wouldn't be so generous as to say OOo's database capabilities are as good as Access. You can merge print from your database -- that is quite easy. You can edit table structure and data -- OK, but I find phpPgAdmin works better for that. It even has form components and the ability to navigate a database with a form, but personally I haven't mastered this yet and feel it's a bit on the ugly side. Certainly there needs to be better documentation for forms and for the Basic code you may need to put in to automate forms. It also has a visual query designer -- OK.

Overall, OOo's database tools will be useful for some people but it has a ways to go. For forms, I think GNU Enterprise has quite a bit more potential.

SQL database without the server

[nuggz]

I think the nice tihng about Access is that it lets you have SQLish access to a file.
It is self contained, no server, just the application.

There are many simple databases I would like to make, but having to play with some SQLd is annoying.

Re:SQL database without the server

[Micah]

I think the nice tihng about Access is that it lets you have SQLish access to a file. It is self contained, no server, just the application.

Right. That is something that Linux *really* needs. Access-like databases aren't for mission critical stuff, but for names and addresses and other smaller things the portability is really handy.

I remember seeing just last week a Python library that intended to do something along these lines. I don't remember the URL though.

There are many simple databases I would like to make, but having to play with some SQLd is annoying.

Well, connecting to an SQLd isn't inherently much harder than using a standalone program like Access. You just have to follow some simple setup instructions.

Re:SQL database without the server

[arkanes]

Access actually does use a server (of sorts), it's reliant of the MS Jet SQL engine, which is part of the MDAC, and issues with different MDAC versions plague developers daily.

Re:SQL database without the server

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually, I've been playing with an embedded database called SQLite[sqlite.org]. It wraps the DB engine in your application, and you get info back and forth through a linked C library.

The author(s) wrote a set of Tcl bindings which make it easy for my lame ass to write noddy little applications in short order. (One line of code to load the module, one line of code to open the database file, and everything after that is retrieving data through SQL.)

trail of tears?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just plain offensive to refer to setting up software as the "Trail of Tears." The Trail of Tears was a time of great suffering of people who were being kicked out of their homeland and decimated with infectious disease. 4000 deaths! Let's at least try to give respect to these innocent humans.

TheJesusCandle steals someone's comment. Again.

[pnot]

I've seen Amazon reviews pasted into /. for a +5 Informative, but I have to admire your sheer gall in pasting in a comment on the same thread from half an hour ago.

Good idea, though. This being Slashdot, nobody checks for dupes ;-).

Hmm, looks like this is a habit of yours. I'm continually amazed that people consider /. karma a sufficiently precious commodity to bother with this kind of thing...

Re:TheJesusCandle steals someone's comment. Again.

[hero]

Hmm, you're quite right. This person exclusively posts plagiarized comments all day, usually they steal a comment that has been moderated +5 for being insightful. However, I suspect karma isn't their ultimate goal, look at the URL they have set: (http://www.keithbowmanauto.com/) They're just trying to get moderated up so more people will see and visit that URL, which is just some lousy car dealership. Just goes to show that if there's a new low level that can be stooped to, advertising will stoop first.

-hero.

Are there any simple Open Source database tools?

[Axiom_1]

Is there any alternative to Microsoft Access? I'm a recent OpenOffice.org convert, but I haven't been able to get shed of MS Office entirely, since I haven't been able to replace MS Access. Am I missing something?

I work for a small business that is just realizing that sometimes a spreadsheet isn't enough. We need a basic desktop database utility, and we need it to be usable by non-developers.

Microsoft Access is the obvious choice, since it is relatively painless to work with. It gives us what we need - creating and modifying tables, editing data, and importing/exporting text files, which checking integrity contraints and data types. The databases we use are all small and for internal use only, so we don't really want to set up a server.

We are in the process of trying to move from MS Office to OpenOffice.org, but this is holding us back. If we can't find a usable Open Source database front end, we'll have to keep shelling out to MS.

Is there an alternative???

Why is he running MySQL as root?

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical lousy security. There's no fundamental reason that MySQL should have to run as root. It'w just a program that accepts incoming connections and reads and writes files. If it needs root privileges, it's broken. Now you've got something else to exploit.

Conflict of interest for MySQL?

[dark-br]

I'm not sure it's fair to query MySQL ABs role in this - did you try accessing Postgres, Interbase, SAPDB, Sybase, MSSQL, Oracle... through OO with unixODBC? Did they work?

Whilst unixODBC sort of works, I've never had much confidence in it - strikes me as being very much the last resort when every other alternative has been tried. In your favour, the MySQL ODBC driver isn't particularly robust - seems to need a number of workarounds to get reliable access from Access (pardon the pun).

I'd also query the quality and reliability of OOs external database support - I've consistently failed to get any database access via JDBC - works fine from my own Java code but never via OO. The documentation was also non-existent last time I looked.

> that secret being the fact that hidden away inside,
> completely unknown to most OpenOffice users, is a
> user-friendly front end for databases

User-friendly? McCreesh was definitely smoking something if he wrote that

Hard to set up?

[tzanger]

StarOffice 6 was as straightfoward as configuring a data source. No harder than doing an external DB connect in Access. OpenOffice is the same thing.

That reminds me -- the database that comes with StarOffice (the name escapes me at the moment) blows goats on all platforms. Next to zero documentation, cryptic as all hell, and did I mention next to zero documentation? If you use StarOffice do yourself a favour and set up a nice Postgres database somewhere. Hell if you use Microsoft Office do the same. I can't believe how tedious it was to try to get the supplied DB running, even on win32.

Re:Hard to set up?

[capt.mellow]

Yeah, I remember the painful experience of trying the Staroffice database a long time ago. I would only use Star/Open for accessing preexisting databases. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, isn't OpenOffice lacking that awful Staroffice database? Not like I went looking for it in OpenOffice, but I know they pruned out a lot of StarOffice stuff . . .

So What!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but MS Access (or free runtime) is the easiest 'app dev platform' I have used on Winbloze.
It is no bullshit to set up(EASY, EASY, EASY!!!).
Development is EASY(Many websites, sample apps a good place to start on various subsystems, books aplenty).
For a small business there is nothing that come even close to reaching the price($800 for copy of Office Developer version, free runtime.)
Developers are growing on trees.
It won't scale well, but the folks that need to can pony up the dough for a db server and some more robust C/S IDE. In the meantime, $800 and cheap consultants can implement all kinds of apps.
I am a java guy(SCJP). I have done quite a bit of PowerBuilder work as well. I love to shittalk on MS AMAP, but Access is more than enough to do most simple projects. Please let me know of any alternative that can come even close to this on Linux, and I'll check it out(believe me, I've been looking).

confessions of win2k/oo1.0 cheater

[capt.mellow]

Win2k/OpenOffice 1.0 user here (/me ducks), so I know my experience doesn't quite apply to the situation at hand . . . Anyway, I set up the mysql odbc driver, and when writing web applications I routinely use OpenOffice to browse around several mysql servers on my intranet by just starting a blank spreadsheet & then clicking "view data sources", where I have added a few data sources which point to the corresponding win2k ODBC DSN's. I just last week dragged a mysql table from the "view data sources" pane into a spreadsheet & saved it as an excel file for a secretary to clean up. When she sends it back, I'll save it as csv & then do a "load data infile blahbhlahblah". It feels like cheating, but heck, it works.

Re:Just Like Access? Cool!

[dcuny]

All this sounds great, unless you noticed the author was trying to run this under Linux.

Your "standard platform components" and "compliant script engines" only run under Windows?

Sort of comparing apples to oranges, then.

But I'll agree that it's not Access. At this point, it's more a data browser tool - it hasn't even got a good report generator.

Even as that, it's missing the most important feature of any tool: being able to lock the users out of the application.

Still, not being Access is probably a good thing, since the advice from all my advanced Access instructors has been "Code it in VB."

Author is an idiot

[sholden]

Yes if you are going to compile stuff yourself you need to be prepared to make sure you actually configure things correctly. So that various software parts agree on where things are located.

If you just want to use the damn software on the other hand you simply do:

$ su root
# apt-get install unixodbc libmyodbc openoffice.org unixodbc-bin
# cp /usr/share/libmyodbc/odbcinst.ini /etc/.
# exit
$ ODBCConfig
- use GUI to configure database info
- note you could skip that 'cp' command and
- config the whole thing here, but that seems
- like extra effort to me when a perfectly good
- MySQL config exists already :)
$ oowriter
- Tools->Data Sources
- New Data Source
- pick ODBC and the name you set up above
- Do your database stuff...

Not exactly rocket science.

The article author is simply an idiot, who wants to make life difficult by compiling software himself without bothering to configure it properly.

Re:Author is an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto - on RH8 stock, I installed the devel to mysql and unixodbc and rebuilt the stock MyODBC src.rpm (only because I was getting a segfault from the binary rpm), edited my odbc.ini, uncommented the MySQL section in odbcinst.ini and bam - there it was, easy as snot and I'm not some guru hacker. Create tables, drop tables, alter tables, etc... Looks pretty functional to me. It'll get better with time.

What a pathetic excuse of a FUD generator this guy is.

It's not point and click easy - but then it could easily be if you want to get down and code it... And for you dweebs whining about it being "hard" causing an obstruction to Desktop acceptance - just how many office employees do YOU know that get in and configure SQL? Access? And how many Home Users - the meat of the Desktop market - do YOU know that use SQL functionality in the first place? Basic office, webbrowsing, email and games are the core to a good desktop. And in any environment where Joe user is going to be doing database entry, any self-respecting company is going to have an IT department/employee managing that end of things - whether it's "hard" or easy. Sheesh...

Re:Author is an idiot

[The Vorlon]

note you could skip that 'cp' command and config the whole thing here, but that seems like extra effort to me when a perfectly good MySQL config exists already :)

<sigh> I guess I need to tweak the libmyodbc package a little bit, since you shouldn't need to copy anything at all -- if you run 'dpkg-reconfigure libmyodbc', you'll see that debconf will ask you if you want to have the driver installed for you. But users who have debconf set to only show high-priority questions won't get that, and they should... That 'cp' command you ran is one step more than anyone should ever have to type to get ODBC support. >;)

Re:Author is an idiot

[sholden]

I was surpised at having to do the copy. The risk you take when you tell the machine to only ask questions equal in magnitude to "should I launch the nuclear weapons?" :)

For information on the Trail of Tears

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll find a few links to explain the
Trail of Tears on my web site.

http://users.netonecom.net/~bbcat/histoire.html

There's more than just ODBC out there

[wackysootroom]

You can use a JDBC driver to get at the data to. It's much easier to set up than ODBC.

You can also export your data to CSV text, or use flat file databses such as xbase.

In fact, I just finished making a java app that converts old foxpro data into CSV, then I merge the data into a form letter and can print labels from the data source.

Everything is there, and easy to set up. The only thing missing is good documentation, IMHO.

StarOffice and Adabase

[illumin8]

For those of you that don't want to go to all of the trouble (not that it's very hard for a sysadmin like myself, but obviously for the author of this article, it was), simply buy a copy of StarOffice 6.0. StarOffice 6.0 comes with a great database program called Adabase that has GUI table design, supports ODBC and MySQL very well. As a matter of fact, from a default install of StarOffice I was able to talk to the MySQL database running on another box immediately just by specifying hostname, port, database name, and username and password for the database.

Worked like a charm, pulled up all my tables in that database and let me add tables, drop tables, add rows, modify rows, delete rows, and basically do anything you could do in a SQL query.

This is really the difference between StarOffice and OpenOffice. Sure they're based on the same code, but Sun has taken the time to make it as easy to use as the MS Office products, and they don't expect their users to be system administrators.

Even if you are a system administrator, how much is your time worth? If it takes 1 or 2 hours of your time to get OpenOffice working properly, wouldn't it be better to just do a 1 hour consulting job instead and buy a copy of StarOffice?

This is something I used to never think about when I was younger, I'd simply spend hours hacking together all the free tools I can find and doing anything to keep from wasting money on something I knew I could get for free. Of course now that I'm getting a little more experienced and older I realize that time is money and that I should probably just buy something that only costs $60 and save myself an hour of my time.

Re:Just Like Access? Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like Access? So, it's a form builder and a report generator, with full support for embedding standard platform components, including and compliant script engines? Just like Access does?

So, now I can script Open Office applications using Perl, Python, VBScript, JavaScript, and a slew of of less popular languages, just like Access? And I can bring in components built in any of the standard platform development environment, just like Access can use ActiveX controls?

Sort of.

• You can create tables in a database with the GUI, and create queries on those tables.
• You can create tables by dragging from a spreadsheet.
• You can build forms that fire off StarBasic.
• You can generate reports from a database(with 643).
• You can controll OOo from any language via a socket interface.
  A python interface can be found here: PyUno

Plus:

• It is free.
• You get the source.
• You can use it forever.

I think you can write your own components, but they have to use the OpenOffice GUI layer.

-- ac at work

Your two points miss the article

[Anonymous Coward]

He was refering to his "friend Milt" who was the Windows/DOS/Network guy. This is the person I said shouldn't be trying to install it on Linux. Now if he would have tried on Windows that would have made sense.

The columnist is a linux user and as such figured out the problem and posted the solution. Now how much of a user he is can be debated.

You dont have to be "leet" as you put it to install the equivilent in Linux but it helps to have actually been a user of linux beyond "I installed Suse today".

So if the writer and Milt are the same person I guess you're right. Otherwise reread the article.

Re:Are there any simple Open Source database tools

[toriver]

Am I missing something?

Yes, Sun's commercial release of OpenOffice.org called StarOffice. That one has all those non-OSS components like a desktop database and spel cheker.

Then OpenOffice.org is for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it comes with a dbf-based database link that lets you create simple tables out-of-the-box without any database server!

-- ac at work (Again!)

It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[for(;;);]

it's offensive because the two things are of totally different proportion. (Frankly, calling Bill Gates a Nazi is the same way.) This article's title is like naming your Cisco Router "The Auswitch" because you don't dig the restrictive interface; or equating the VCR with the Boston Strangler.

The Cherokee Nation had a bicameral legislature, newspapers, and cities. This was a full nation that Andrew Jackson forcibly expelled to Oklahoma. Comparing this ethnic cleansing to one's ODBC setup bugaboos is shit-headed.

Hey, I'm not saying whoever wrote this shouldn't be allowed to say it. But neither should that person be kept from derision, like a darling little prince. Whoever thought up the title of this article is a cockmaster. Deal with it.

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[PyromanFO]

"This article's title is like naming your Cisco Router "The Auswitch""

Id have to disagree, the article title is different from your example because I found your example funny. :) The article isn't really all that funny, but "The Auswitch"? Thats gold. Maybe Im a sucker for bad puns.

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever thought up the title of this article is a cockmaster. Deal with it.

Oh bullshit.

A good rule of thumb is: when everyone who experienced an event is dead, it's okay to joke about it.

Lighten up.

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[oconnorcjo]

This article's title is like naming your Cisco Router "The Auswitch" because you don't dig the restrictive interface; or equating the VCR with the Boston Strangler.

Ahh... you have met my ex VCR. I would put innocent victums- I mean tapes in and they would never be seen again- I mean played. I have a new Boston Strangler- I mean VCR and so far no one has been killed- I mean destroy.

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea I laughed out loud at that one. I feel dirty inside.

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[dypstick]

>(Frankly, calling Bill Gates a Nazi is the same way.)

yeah, Billy-boy is way worse than the Nazi's where!
He's going for world domination, he has concentration camps (user base), and he has soldiers (MSCE's).

Re:It's not offensive because of p.c.-ity...

[error0x100]

Whoever thought up the title of this article is a cockmaster. Deal with it.

I guess it does partially come down to whether or not he knew of the possible connotations when he wrote it, and how general the term is. I have heard the term "trail of tears" before but had never heard of the ethnic cleansing it was associated with; it is a slightly more general phrase than Auschwitz, outside the US especially.

If the author knew about the "trail of tears" ethnic cleansing, then certainly, it was just plain shit-headed. To imply (even indirectly) that his ODBC woes anywhere near approach the suffering of the indigenous Americans is moronic.

Re:Who cares

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Hmm, like volunteer organizations.

Especially if you are running a database under Linux, for whatever reason. Say because your budget for a project is a couple hundred bucks (including hardware) and requires the system to generate a lot of paperwork.

Much more in-depth how-to here

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, two pages. How about a much more in-depth article with screen shots explaining the whole ! here, accessible from the front page, in the September Journal.It's in postscript format, and 68 pages long with embedded graphics (screen shots).

Those of you running free software can use the simple ps2pdf, or whatever you like to view the Journal. Ten pages covers OpenOffice.org/MySql, and there are other pages covering the Commerce Committee hearing on digital restrictions management/drm (is theft), the free software business demo in NYC, the business demo in Queens, New York, and more exciting stuff can be found at the web site.

Re:Much more in-depth how-to here

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks!

Another better article on this

[MrBrklyn]

NYLXS did an article on this in the September Journal and will be following up with a series on Open Office.

http://www.nylxs.com/journal/sept2002/openoff_my sq l.html

http://www.nylxs.com/journal/

And you complain about MS

[Anonymous Coward]

An example of why GNU will never be mainstream.

RPM vs compiled

[ftzdomino]

A lot of the issues described in the article were caused by the fact that he mixed a compiled MySQL with some rpms. The RPMS from redhat place both the socket and the libraries into different directories. Had he used an RPM to install mysql, it would have been configured for the proper paths. If he had compiled the clients, they would have been looking for files in the default paths as well. If ./configuring an app on a redhat machine it is always a good idea to use --prefix=/usr and then check the paths in the generated Makefile.

ARGH!

[MarvinMouse]

I am under attack by a massive army of acronyms! No more! No more!

Re:OLE DB??

[more fool you]

No windows programmer would use OLEDB for ODBC when accessing SQL Server for instance.

no worm would use OLEDB when accessing SQL Server for instance

However, only half of all SQL Servers are not busy slamming the network, so this post is a little redundant. but just FYI

>:-)

Read the article, your two points are missing big

[BoomerSooner]

He was refering to his "friend Milt" who was the Windows/DOS/Network guy. This is the person I said shouldn't be trying to install it on Linux. Now if he would have tried on Windows that would have made sense.

The columnist is a linux user and as such figured out the problem and posted the solution. Now how much of a user he is can be debated.

You dont have to be "leet" as you put it to install the equivilent in Linux but it helps to have actually been a user of linux beyond "I installed Suse today".

So if the writer and Milt are the same person I guess you're right. Otherwise reread the article, again.

Then get a Mac.

[BoomerSooner]

I use Windows, Solaris, OS 9, OS X, Linux (Redhat currently) and FreeBSD. I don't have time to screw with stuff either and I fully believe Linux is no where near ready for the Desktop.

The thing is I don't give a shit. I don't develop Linux, I just use it. And as such it meets my needs. When people want something for nothing they really shouldn't bitch about "useability". If you want ease of use get a Mac. Or hell for that matter get a Windows machine, it's a lot easier to work with than a linux box (especially when his friend Milt is only familiar with DOS, Windows and Networking as I said above).

I am far from a "smug Linux coding wizard" and user friendliness is worth about 2 cents when you're not getting paid for a product. OSS is great in my opinion (i've been using linux since '95) and has come millions of miles from where it was. However, Linux for the desktop is a joke. BTW, buy StarOffice, it comes with a database program which most "Desktop Users" really don't need.

OS X:
Unix-based Desktop
MS Office (actually it's quite nice)
Photoshop
InDesign
Illustrator
FlashMX
DreamweaverMX
Oracle (if it would get out of RC 2)
FileMaker .....

OS X kicks the shit out of linux as a desktop. Why get a philips-head screw driver for a flat-head job?

The RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB, it should be common sense. Unfortunately it is far from common and sense left the IT industry in the 90's like a "Bat out of Hades!".

that's the Linux business model, right?

[sirshannon]

create a free product that is so hard to install/configure/operate/repair that you have to pay for support.

Re:Read the article, your two points are missing b

[yoz]

You dont have to be "leet" as you put it to install the equivilent in Linux but it helps to have actually been a user of linux beyond "I installed Suse today".

Sure, it helps. But, ideally, it shouldn't matter that much. Installing Linux is, in the grand scheme of things, a complex enough task that installing a simple bit of office software should be at least as easy.

So if the writer and Milt are the same person I guess you're right. Otherwise reread the article, again.

No, you reread the article:

As of this morning, I'm happy to report that I have finally accomplished the hard part. After nearly a week of endless frustrations, retries and reinstalls, I finally have OpenOffice, MySQL, and ODBC playing together nicely.

Note use of the first-person singular "I". That's not "Milt", that's "I".

-- Yoz

Dudes, this doesn't work.

[Snafoo]

Here's the problem. According to the OpenOffice/ODBC howto (dead)linked to by this howto (but still available via google), versions of MySQL after .49 have a 'bug' that causes missing symbol complaints and crashes on the part of OO. (Basically, I think the problem boils down to: The twits at MySQL have managed to break compat. ) The howto thus recommends downgrading to or sticking with Mysql .49. HOWEVER, the latest word from the RedHat advisories indicates that every version of MySQL below, like, .54 is basically an open door for haxx0rs; multiple buffer-overflows in every executable, etc. etc.

So the upshot is that you can pick one of the following:
(1) Have a working database front-end in the form of OpenOffice, or

(2) Have an uncompromised system.

Thanks, Open Source, for wasting two precious hours of my life with a difficult installation procedure that fails because of security vulnerabilities and cross-version incompatibilities!

(Now where's my Office CD again...?)

Whoa, did anyone else do a Linux doubletake?

[orichter]

Did anyone else see the sentance:

Powerful words should be used carefully, other wise their glib use leaves our language impoverished and trivialized.

and wonder what g-lib has to do with a conversation on the Trail of Tears? Perhaps I've been coding too long.

Re:Whoa, did anyone else do a Linux doubletake?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes hahaahahahah cool somone else did too

if so, the problem is with Open Office

[Pinball Wizard]

MySQL and ODBC work pretty much flawlessly together.

In fact, if you want an "Access-like" front end to MySQL, one thing you can do is (gasp) to use Access.

With a MySQL server sitting somewhere on your network, and MyODBC and MS Access on your client machine, you can link the MySQL tables and be able to use Access queries, forms, modules and macros. I'd love it if there were something like Access in the Open Source world, as I find table and query design faster for most things with a visual tool. But until then, Access works just fine as a front end.

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

openoffice and odbc hard????

wtf??

Ive been using OO with sql server, access, and postgresql databases with much luck for many many months.

Possibly ID10T errors ?

slashdot is racist

[Anonymous Coward]

this title is as offensive as hell. you people are sick.

This is sad to see for mainstreaming Linux

[Ralman]

Sad to see that it is rather difficult to set things like this us. Reading through some of the comments there seems to be an overwhelming amount bashing going on regarding the skills of the author.

Ok, I admit I know nothing about the author, OpenOffice, and setting up ODBC on Linux. Other than what I have read about it. I have not had to do anything like this for any of my projects, but I may soon. The author needs to be cut some slack. This is just an example of the trouble he went through. Sure he may /may not be intimately familiar with all the packages and tools, but
things like this need to be ironed out.

This can be seen as more of a reason for standardizing the directory structure of Linux. Sure there are some 'standards' imposed by the various distro's but just about all of them are radically different. Not to mention where things get tossed by default when doing a compile from source. Ok, so Microsoft writes the rules for their OS, then everyone including themselves break it, but there seems to be more companies following these standards rather than not.

---
If these thoughts seems rambling, that's because they are. My mind can't make up it's whether it is coming or going.

Re:Thanks should go to NYLXS

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks should go to NYLXS, a non-profit organization made up of individuals from the community that provide solutions to small and large business problems of software licensing fees, restrictive code agreements, and abusive auditing tactics.

It was the membership of NYLXS who rented a van and left NYC at 4 am on July 17, 2002 to attend the Commerce Committee "roundtable" on drm, where the odds were stacked against the public at around 22 to 1 according to reporters covering the event. It was individuals within the organization, and friends from other organizations with similar goals, who stood up and said, enough! to the load of bull being put forth by Mr. Jack Valenti and his cronies at that "roundtable". Had it not been for the actions taken on this day, and for the media response, and for the Commerce Committee's damage control (one staff member was quoted as saying "we've never had anything like this happen here before", and the Commerce Committee's damage control response resulting in an invitation to sit down and talk with them, all covered in Newsforge and many other netzine articles), had it not been for NYLXS's actions, the drm legislation was being steamrolled through Congress, and had good momentum. It was stopped in its tracks that day, and the result was it was killed for the year, since the elections came soon after and the legislation was tabled.

Thanks should go to the NYLXS membership who protested Dmitri's imprisonment regularly in NYC while he was imprisoned half way around the world from his home and family.

Thanks should go to NYLXS who are putting on business demonstrations showing that open source works for business. Business demos held in NYC, and in Queens, NY. Business demos that are widely attended. Business demos that are recorded and can be heard at the link above if you download the audio files.

Thanks should go to the NYLXS educational arm, the Free Software Institute, that provides the training to individuals and companies, in open source and free software operating systems, tools, and applications that make individuals more productive, less reliant on others, and provide true cost savings and reliability.

Thanks should go to the members of NYLXS that meet with local legislators both at home in NYC, and in our nation's capitol, and let their views be understood, their voices heard on free and open source software, on the DMCA, on drm, and other relevant issues.

Thanks should go to the members of NYLXS that sacrifice their time, and keep the gears turning behind the scenes to make sure that NYLXS functions as it should, according to its charter.

NYLXS is a non-profit organization that puts earnings from its Free Software Institute back into free and open source software promotion, issues, and problems. Installfests (where you can bring your computer and receive assistance in getting a gnu/linux distribution legally installed on your computer) are just one area where NYLXS members help to promote free and open source software.

While NYLXS can receive donations that are tax-deductible due to its non-profit status, the NYLXS organization prides itself in being doers, not watchers. Membership is open to people who share the organization's ideals and goals, but as stated, this isn't a join and do nothing organization. Members are required to actively participate in the organization. It may take a little while, but normally, new members listen, find some project, issue, mission, within the organization that they like, and then run with it. It is a testament to the diversity of views of the organization that enables such effective and motivated participation on the part of its members. And it is this motivated participation that enables NYLXS to succeed in its mission, and to effectively communicate its message to others curious about what free and open source software is all about.

Thank you NYLXS!

Pedants' corner

[alext]

You aren't, or you weren't - AFAIR the RDB project at IBM - System R*? - originally called the language SEQUEL (hence Ingres QUEL, which might be the commercial product someone else remembers).

However the IBM TLA police were called in (they turned a number of products into TLAs for some reason) and officially renamed it S.Q.L., so it's an SQL database these days.

Re:Uh, he's a Linuxworld columnist?-DB over FS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why we over at OSNews had a conversation about what was basically a database over a filesystem. The pieces are there, scattered over different filesystems, from VMS to ReiserFS. Novell,Unix, and Windows. A lightweight database, transparent by workings, but not by power. Why worry about a seperate database, when it's integrated into the system proper?
---
.Net patent could stifle standards effort

Re:Are there any simple Open Source database tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Alpha Five from Alpha Software. They've been around since the 80's making DOS and now Win32 software that kicks Access' ass in reviews.

Alpha

I don't understand..

[Anonymous Coward]

I have searched, but I see nothing comparable to MS Access in Open Office.

I think everyone here really has no clue what Access does.

Leo

I'm not so lucky...

[r6144]

Using the same configuration as yours (Redhat 8, postgresql 7.2.x/7.3,x, Oo 1.0/643c), I can connect to postgresql databases using either ODBC or JDBC and do some simple things, but random crashes are so frequent it is not really very usable.

Which ODBC driver are you using? The one from unixODBC or the one from PostgreSQL?

Re:I'm not so lucky...

[Micah]

In odbcinst.ini:

# Included in the unixODBC package
[PostgreSQL]
Description = ODBC for PostgreSQL
Driver = /usr/lib/libodbcpsql.so
Setup = /usr/lib/libodbcpsqlS.so
FileUsage = 1

[micah@eclipse micah]$ rpm -qf /usr/lib/libodbcpsql.so
unixODBC-devel-2.2.2-3
[ micah@eclipse micah]$ rpm -qf /usr/lib/libodbcpsqlS.so
unixODBC-devel-2.2.2-3

so I think I'm using the driver that comes with unixODBC.

in odbc.ini:

[Contacts]
Description = HCJB Contacts
Driver = PostgreSQL
Trace = No
TraceFile =
Database = contacts
Servername = localhost
UserName = micah
Password =
Port = 5432
Protocol = 6.4
ReadOnly = No
RowVersioning = No
ShowSystemTables = No
ShowOidColumn = No
FakeOidIndex = No
ConnSettings =

The main confusing thing in there is the "protocol = 6.4", since I'm using Postgres 7.2. But it was in the template I saw, and it works, so I haven't changed it.

You're paranoid, so you go back to Office?

[The Vorlon]

Oh, get over yourself. At least Red Hat *tells* you that there are security issues with older versions of MySQL. You really think going back to Access gives you better security than using OOo with an "insecure" version of MyODBC?

And "insecure" is in quotes because... out of the security issues Red Hat lists in their errata, I see only one that's client-side, and it's only exploitable if you're talking to a hostile server. The window of opportunity is very small there; almost certainly smaller than what you're exposing yourself to by running MS products, "now with true-color scripting enabled for brighter databases than ever!".

AARGGGGGGHHHHHHHH !!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame on you slashdot ... Microsoft adds !!!!!!
beuuuarrrrkkkkkkk (puking on my laptop noise) !!!!!

Do you really need to sell you butt to get money that bad ???

Next week it's going to be slashdot.msn.com or what ???

Last Post!

[alpg]

(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting
purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.
(7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the
office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible
and other good books.
(8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly
sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years,
so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters.
(9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink
in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets
shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect
his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
(10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and
without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of
five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the
business permit it.
-- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...