Maybe so. But Oracle could easily release a new version under a much more onerous licence and withdraw support from the GPL'd code. MySQL isn't very attractive commercially unless it comes with support from a large vendor that Board members can read about in the financial press. That's why PostgreSQL is relatively unpopular in a commercial setting - it has more to do with the implied threat to the career development of senior staff than with the quality of the product.
Bad news for MySQL
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
MySQL is worth far more to Oracle than to any other company. To anyone else, MySQL is simply worth the present value of its future revenue stream but, to Oracle, it's also worth the impact that it has on its own database revenue streams.
The anti-MySQL ranters who keep posting on/. miss the point that for many, if not most, commercial projects, MySQL is good enough and has a very low total ownership cost. Oracle knows that too, and the mere existence of MySQL puts an effective price cap on Oracle for low-end projects. It's not the number of users who actually switch to MySQL that bothers Oracle; it's the number who threaten to and get a discount as a result.
Look out for some significant changes to MySQL licensing and pricing. It's my guess that databases just got a whole load more expensive.
The PRS is guilty of long-standing idiocy. In one celebrated incident a few months back, they attempted to fine a garage owner £2,000 unless his customers turned off their car radios before driving onto his premises.
This thing is absolutely fine with me. I've never watched music videos on Youtube, but I don't for a moment imagine that the kids who did will be queuing up to stuff fistfuls of fivers in the PRS's pockets in some other way. Instead they'll turn to piracy or give up on music and play with Facebook.
In due course, big media will realise that their so-called guardians are actually their enemies and they'll fire them. But, by then, there might not be a music industry that's worthy of the name. It'll be a well-deserved outcome.
I'd expect tech readers to have a modicum of statistical sense, but the arguments presented in the summary display an embarrasing ignorance of established statistical techniques. The central limit theorem - one of the first things taught on any stats course - suggests that the sample size is more than adequate, and the researchers have made a serious attempt to take a representative sample across coutries, age groups and genders.
The flaws in the research are more subtle but aren't picked up in the summary. First, beware of any vendor-funded survey - you can guarantee that the although the underlying facts are probably accurate, the interpretation will spun to the point of incredulity. Also, there's probably good reason to believe that people who take part in email surveys aren't representative of the wider population.
But the real problem is that the survey muddles up devices and people: the research discovered that 99% of people can read see Flash animations, but that doesn't remotely mean that 99% of internet-connected devices have Flash. My phone is connected to the innternet, but it certainly can't read Flash files, for example, but I generally read emails on my PC not my phone
Having said that, the results smell about right. Almost all PCs have Flash because it's so easy to install these days - even on Linux./P
You don't work for the manufacturer, do you? If you lived in Cardiff, you'd remember the scorn and ridicule that the Echo, Western Mail and local free press poured on the idea - not least becuase part of the proposed route was through an area of the city traditionally associated with prostitution. The political risks of the project were simply too high; the procurement rules issue was a convenient excuse.
We almost bought one of these systems in Cardiff, Wales a few years back. Then the local press started speculating that the pods would be a great place for couples to indulge themselves on the way home from the pub. Thoughts of grafitti-covered pods full of condoms, used syringes and vomit killed the scheme dead in its tracks.
This might be OK in an airport. In an inner city it would be a disaster.
I'm sure that Google is a reputable company. But does SAS70 guarantee that all local data protection requirements have been met? The whole world isn't the USA, and most European companies are prohibited by law from processing or storing customer data in the USA. And is Google's compliance contractually enforceable? These things can't casually be taken for granted in a corporate environment.
...for any kind of regulated business unless you plan to do due diligence on the security, confidentiality and availability of data held by Google.
Can you guarantee that Google won't pass your customers' personal data to a backup site that's not in your home country? Can you be certain that no Google admin will pass your confidential downsizing proposals to the media? Does Google offer guarantees that important correspondence is available within the timescales required by a regulator? Does Google guarantee to delete obsolete data in accordance with local data protection laws? Is the answer to these questions supported by an enforceable contract?
Google apps has its place for personal correspondence. But if your using the cloud to store corporate or customer data without answering questions like these, you're professionally negligent.
It's generally known on Slashdot that Apple's MacBooks are competitive with Windows PCs at their price, when all of their features are considered (specifically, screen size and battery life),
But when you buy a generic Intel machine, you can usually choose only to pay for the features that are important to you
when first released.
and, by inference, rather overpriced when they're due for replacement.
You also need to consider the cost of maintenance. I've been quoted a repair price on my just-out-of-warranty Mac that's more than the cost of a new machine - and because the components are unique to Apple, I can't go to another supplier.
In the UK, they probably wouldn't be allowed to put the clause in the purchase contract - that's what our Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts legislation is for. It places restrictions on companies that enter into cookie-cutter (ie not individually negotiated) contracts with consumers, and prevents the company from attempting to insert clauses that are unfair and wouldn't be accepted in a contract between equals. Preventing Google from insisting that consumers waive their rights under the Computer Misuse Act would probably be a very good example of the intended purpose of the legislation.
IANAL, but this could well be subject to legal challenge in the UK under a combination of the Computer Misuse Act and the Unfair Contract Terms Act. The first piece of legislation means that you're not allowed to run code, modify data or attempt to access a computer that doesn't belong to you without the owner's permission; the second places restrictions on the type of clauses that companies can place in contracts with consumers. If Google deleted an application that I'd previously paid for, they'd be skating on some very thin leagal ice.
It has everything to do with security if your ergonomic mouse also has flash memory storage and you have access to customer data that's useful in support of identity theft. If you want to use your ergnomic mouse, simply ask for it to be added to the list of approved devices.
Personal mobile phones are an issue if they have a camera and you're handling documents that can be used to prove a customer's identity. Non-camera phones are problematic if your phone calls are supposed to be recorded to demonstrate that you're complying with standards in a regulated sales environment. Internet access is problematic if you have access to customer data and can also access some site somewhere that allows you to upload data.
And so the list goes on. You need to put on the mindset of a criminal.
We're already there in the UK Financial Services industry. Earlier this year, the FSA (our financial regulator) issued a report on best practice that, amongst other things, recommends that
organisations should work on the assumption that staff do not know what the firm's policies and procedfures are
staff handling customer data should not be allowed to have mobile phones or personal belongings at their desks
staff should not have access to external email or the internet unless there is a genuine business need
all USB ports should be disabled so that only approved, encrypted devices will work
If you're in the industry and doing less, expect regulatory sanctions if anything goes wrong. It's time to get tough on slack security.
In the UK, most large companies have long accepted that this is an implicit requirement of our Data Protection Act. In my area of work, you'd certainly be subject to disciplinary action if you failed to encrypt an email that contained personal data.
Perhaps it's time for the USA to catch up with the rest of the world.
Well it works for me. Perhaps your box is hosed, ancient or underpowered. I often delete 20-30 hours of recordings with no freeze anywhere. Maybe you should try a reinstallation or an upgrade.
EXT3 works perfectly on my Myth box and is probably the best filesystem for use with an up to date installation. The reason it was previously not recommened with Myth is because it takes a long time to delete large files on EXT3, so if you delete a file whilst making a recording, you can get a drop-out. However, Myth backend now has an option for slow background deletion of large files; if you enable it, you won't have any problems. Given the amount of RAM on a typical modern media server, though, it's unlikely that a drop-out would occur - the system would just cache the recording ntil the hard drive became available.
I, too, have lost data with abrupt power loss on XFS. JFS doesn't auto-repair on startup with Ubuntu, so that's not a good option unless you want to manually run FSCK every time you have power outage. Any other filesystem isn't mainstream so is best avoided.
...because if you are and you're planning to sent personal data (there can't be many 2GB web sites that contain no personal data at all) on DVD through the mail, you might want to look at recent pronouncements from the Information Commissioner. A large fine could be waiting for you if you go down that route.
IANAL and I can't speak for the USA, but, for the benefit of any UK based/.ers, you're the one who'd be in deep trouble with the Data Protection Registrar if any of your clients stored personal data on your site. The basic principle is that you can outsource data processing, but you can't outsource your legal responsibilities. If their admins can poke around personal data without due cause, legally it's your fault for not putting in proper contactual safeguards and applying due diligience.
It's probably also worth noting that UK based sites containing personal data can't be hosted on North American servers without specific authority from each person whose data is being processed. There are good reasons why cheap web hosting isn't suitable for business use.
My lad started coding when he was about 10, but it took a few false starts. In my experience, compiled languages like C aren't a great place to begin, as the need for compilation really gets in the way of the learning experience. I also had a failure with PHP - I thought that he'd enjoy web hacking as he was comfortable with HTML, but I found that cookies and sessions - without which you can't do much in a web environment - were a huge conceptual problem for a young mind.
You need to start with something that's simple, rewarding, well documented and with good community support. A language that permits procedural code and dynamic typing is also much easier to teach. I suggest Python for the language as it has a great beginner's IDE on Linux (DrPython) and, importantly, it produces comprehensible error messages (Ruby on Rails: I'm looking at you). It also produces clean, legible code.
You need to move beyond text-based programs pretty quickly: no-one wants to show off a terminal session to their mates. GUI interfaces aren't very teenage, so I suggest you check out PyGame for graphics and sounds - simple to learn with quick rewards.
Finally, enter the next PyWeek competition with your lad - he'll never win, but it'll help him to see how a more complex project fits together and give him a gret sense of achievement.
I'm in the market for a netbook, but it won't be the Wind that I buy. I want a netbook in addition to a laptop, so the supposed benefits that the Wind offers over the competition - larger screen, bigger storage, larger keyboard - are actually disadvantages.
I'm not sure who this product is aimed at. It seems to be a poor-man's substitute for a downmarket laptop, rather than a cool gadget that can take computing to places where it wasn't previously practical to go.
There is a problem with the British education system with respect to IT skills.
In 1979 when I was 12, my maths teacher taught the entire class to program in BASIC using pen, paper and a single teletype terminal with a 110 baud connection to the mainframe in City Hall. 1000 pupils shared the computer, but, if you were in the top maths class, you were expected to learn to program. Shortly after we learned FORTRAN and an educational pseudo-assembly language called CESIL. We loved it, and when the ZX81, BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum were launched, many of my peers bought them to continue to program - not to play games. The emphasis on coding continued throughout school and university - mathematicians, engineers and scientists were all expected to be able to cut code.
I'm an accountant now, but when I have some complex data to process I often write a program (much to the distaste of our IT team who don't think that I should be allowed to intrude on their domain). And, as a result, I invariably wipe the floor with colleagues who only know how to use Excel and MS Access.
My son is now 12, and his school has literally hundreds of computers. But programming has been removed from the curriculum and been replaced by lessons in Word, Powerpoint and the Windows GUI. Coding is deemed to be too difficult for the masses and is restricted to a few older puplis who show particular interest. But all my children enjoy programming at home - even my 9-year-old has a go at it.
Perhaps worse, very few PCs now come equipped with the tools needed to write some code. Even Ubuntu, a geek's operating system by any normal measure, has no obvious desktop coding environment - if you don't know that python's hiding away on the command line, you won't find it and even GCC's not installed by default. As for Windows or OS X...
So kids aren't being taught to program in school, and they don't know what they can do with the equipment that they have at home. Is there any surprise that there's a skills shortage?
When I installed IES4Linux, I didn't have to agree to any EULA at all. I have no contract with Microsoft and I've made no agreement with them regarding my usage of the software that they freely distributed to me. Provided I respect their implied copyright by not distributing it further, I'm not sure what claim that they could ever have against me.
European, and especially UK "fundamentalist evangelicals" on the other hand are neither fundamentalist nor evangelical in the strict sense of the words, and don't have the strength of conviction to believe that their bibles are the inspired word of god.
Are you parodying a position or do you really believe that? If by fundamentalist you mean a person who believes that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, then I'm one of those. And if by evangelical you mean a born-again Protestant fundamentalist with a personal faith in God, I'm one of those, too.
But I also believe that the origin of the species of life (I accept the correction made above) is pretty much the way science describes it. I can't see any conflict between the two positions. And nor can most of my fundamentalist friends.
This whole debate seems pretty strange to European eyes. I consider myself to be a fundamentalist Bible believing evangelical Christian, but, in Britain, people like me take the view that Genesis describes the evolutionary process pretty well. Although many Evangelicals support Intelligent Design or Young Earth Creationism, there's little opposition within Christian circles to full acceptance of the scientific explanation of the origins of life.
Between this and support for a right-wing social and foreign policy agenda, I sometimes wonder if American evangelicals read the same Bible that I do.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe so. But Oracle could easily release a new version under a much more onerous licence and withdraw support from the GPL'd code. MySQL isn't very attractive commercially unless it comes with support from a large vendor that Board members can read about in the financial press. That's why PostgreSQL is relatively unpopular in a commercial setting - it has more to do with the implied threat to the career development of senior staff than with the quality of the product.
MySQL is worth far more to Oracle than to any other company. To anyone else, MySQL is simply worth the present value of its future revenue stream but, to Oracle, it's also worth the impact that it has on its own database revenue streams.
The anti-MySQL ranters who keep posting on /. miss the point that for many, if not most, commercial projects, MySQL is good enough and has a very low total ownership cost. Oracle knows that too, and the mere existence of MySQL puts an effective price cap on Oracle for low-end projects. It's not the number of users who actually switch to MySQL that bothers Oracle; it's the number who threaten to and get a discount as a result.
Look out for some significant changes to MySQL licensing and pricing. It's my guess that databases just got a whole load more expensive.
Great product, shame about the marketing. That's why Canonical / Ubuntu is so important.
The PRS is guilty of long-standing idiocy. In one celebrated incident a few months back, they attempted to fine a garage owner £2,000 unless his customers turned off their car radios before driving onto his premises.
This thing is absolutely fine with me. I've never watched music videos on Youtube, but I don't for a moment imagine that the kids who did will be queuing up to stuff fistfuls of fivers in the PRS's pockets in some other way. Instead they'll turn to piracy or give up on music and play with Facebook.
In due course, big media will realise that their so-called guardians are actually their enemies and they'll fire them. But, by then, there might not be a music industry that's worthy of the name. It'll be a well-deserved outcome.
I'd expect tech readers to have a modicum of statistical sense, but the arguments presented in the summary display an embarrasing ignorance of established statistical techniques. The central limit theorem - one of the first things taught on any stats course - suggests that the sample size is more than adequate, and the researchers have made a serious attempt to take a representative sample across coutries, age groups and genders.
The flaws in the research are more subtle but aren't picked up in the summary. First, beware of any vendor-funded survey - you can guarantee that the although the underlying facts are probably accurate, the interpretation will spun to the point of incredulity. Also, there's probably good reason to believe that people who take part in email surveys aren't representative of the wider population.
But the real problem is that the survey muddles up devices and people: the research discovered that 99% of people can read see Flash animations, but that doesn't remotely mean that 99% of internet-connected devices have Flash. My phone is connected to the innternet, but it certainly can't read Flash files, for example, but I generally read emails on my PC not my phone
Having said that, the results smell about right. Almost all PCs have Flash because it's so easy to install these days - even on Linux./P
You don't work for the manufacturer, do you? If you lived in Cardiff, you'd remember the scorn and ridicule that the Echo, Western Mail and local free press poured on the idea - not least becuase part of the proposed route was through an area of the city traditionally associated with prostitution. The political risks of the project were simply too high; the procurement rules issue was a convenient excuse.
We almost bought one of these systems in Cardiff, Wales a few years back. Then the local press started speculating that the pods would be a great place for couples to indulge themselves on the way home from the pub. Thoughts of grafitti-covered pods full of condoms, used syringes and vomit killed the scheme dead in its tracks.
This might be OK in an airport. In an inner city it would be a disaster.
I'm sure that Google is a reputable company. But does SAS70 guarantee that all local data protection requirements have been met? The whole world isn't the USA, and most European companies are prohibited by law from processing or storing customer data in the USA. And is Google's compliance contractually enforceable? These things can't casually be taken for granted in a corporate environment.
...for any kind of regulated business unless you plan to do due diligence on the security, confidentiality and availability of data held by Google.
Can you guarantee that Google won't pass your customers' personal data to a backup site that's not in your home country? Can you be certain that no Google admin will pass your confidential downsizing proposals to the media? Does Google offer guarantees that important correspondence is available within the timescales required by a regulator? Does Google guarantee to delete obsolete data in accordance with local data protection laws? Is the answer to these questions supported by an enforceable contract?
Google apps has its place for personal correspondence. But if your using the cloud to store corporate or customer data without answering questions like these, you're professionally negligent.
But when you buy a generic Intel machine, you can usually choose only to pay for the features that are important to you
and, by inference, rather overpriced when they're due for replacement.
You also need to consider the cost of maintenance. I've been quoted a repair price on my just-out-of-warranty Mac that's more than the cost of a new machine - and because the components are unique to Apple, I can't go to another supplier.
In the UK, they probably wouldn't be allowed to put the clause in the purchase contract - that's what our Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts legislation is for. It places restrictions on companies that enter into cookie-cutter (ie not individually negotiated) contracts with consumers, and prevents the company from attempting to insert clauses that are unfair and wouldn't be accepted in a contract between equals. Preventing Google from insisting that consumers waive their rights under the Computer Misuse Act would probably be a very good example of the intended purpose of the legislation.
IANAL, but this could well be subject to legal challenge in the UK under a combination of the Computer Misuse Act and the Unfair Contract Terms Act. The first piece of legislation means that you're not allowed to run code, modify data or attempt to access a computer that doesn't belong to you without the owner's permission; the second places restrictions on the type of clauses that companies can place in contracts with consumers. If Google deleted an application that I'd previously paid for, they'd be skating on some very thin leagal ice.
It has everything to do with security if your ergonomic mouse also has flash memory storage and you have access to customer data that's useful in support of identity theft. If you want to use your ergnomic mouse, simply ask for it to be added to the list of approved devices.
Personal mobile phones are an issue if they have a camera and you're handling documents that can be used to prove a customer's identity. Non-camera phones are problematic if your phone calls are supposed to be recorded to demonstrate that you're complying with standards in a regulated sales environment. Internet access is problematic if you have access to customer data and can also access some site somewhere that allows you to upload data.
And so the list goes on. You need to put on the mindset of a criminal.
We're already there in the UK Financial Services industry. Earlier this year, the FSA (our financial regulator) issued a report on best practice that, amongst other things, recommends that
If you're in the industry and doing less, expect regulatory sanctions if anything goes wrong. It's time to get tough on slack security.
In the UK, most large companies have long accepted that this is an implicit requirement of our Data Protection Act. In my area of work, you'd certainly be subject to disciplinary action if you failed to encrypt an email that contained personal data.
Perhaps it's time for the USA to catch up with the rest of the world.
Well it works for me. Perhaps your box is hosed, ancient or underpowered. I often delete 20-30 hours of recordings with no freeze anywhere. Maybe you should try a reinstallation or an upgrade.
EXT3 works perfectly on my Myth box and is probably the best filesystem for use with an up to date installation. The reason it was previously not recommened with Myth is because it takes a long time to delete large files on EXT3, so if you delete a file whilst making a recording, you can get a drop-out. However, Myth backend now has an option for slow background deletion of large files; if you enable it, you won't have any problems. Given the amount of RAM on a typical modern media server, though, it's unlikely that a drop-out would occur - the system would just cache the recording ntil the hard drive became available.
I, too, have lost data with abrupt power loss on XFS. JFS doesn't auto-repair on startup with Ubuntu, so that's not a good option unless you want to manually run FSCK every time you have power outage. Any other filesystem isn't mainstream so is best avoided.
...because if you are and you're planning to sent personal data (there can't be many 2GB web sites that contain no personal data at all) on DVD through the mail, you might want to look at recent pronouncements from the Information Commissioner. A large fine could be waiting for you if you go down that route.
IANAL and I can't speak for the USA, but, for the benefit of any UK based /.ers, you're the one who'd be in deep trouble with the Data Protection Registrar if any of your clients stored personal data on your site. The basic principle is that you can outsource data processing, but you can't outsource your legal responsibilities. If their admins can poke around personal data without due cause, legally it's your fault for not putting in proper contactual safeguards and applying due diligience.
It's probably also worth noting that UK based sites containing personal data can't be hosted on North American servers without specific authority from each person whose data is being processed. There are good reasons why cheap web hosting isn't suitable for business use.
My lad started coding when he was about 10, but it took a few false starts. In my experience, compiled languages like C aren't a great place to begin, as the need for compilation really gets in the way of the learning experience. I also had a failure with PHP - I thought that he'd enjoy web hacking as he was comfortable with HTML, but I found that cookies and sessions - without which you can't do much in a web environment - were a huge conceptual problem for a young mind.
You need to start with something that's simple, rewarding, well documented and with good community support. A language that permits procedural code and dynamic typing is also much easier to teach. I suggest Python for the language as it has a great beginner's IDE on Linux (DrPython) and, importantly, it produces comprehensible error messages (Ruby on Rails: I'm looking at you). It also produces clean, legible code.
You need to move beyond text-based programs pretty quickly: no-one wants to show off a terminal session to their mates. GUI interfaces aren't very teenage, so I suggest you check out PyGame for graphics and sounds - simple to learn with quick rewards.
Finally, enter the next PyWeek competition with your lad - he'll never win, but it'll help him to see how a more complex project fits together and give him a gret sense of achievement.
I'm in the market for a netbook, but it won't be the Wind that I buy. I want a netbook in addition to a laptop, so the supposed benefits that the Wind offers over the competition - larger screen, bigger storage, larger keyboard - are actually disadvantages.
I'm not sure who this product is aimed at. It seems to be a poor-man's substitute for a downmarket laptop, rather than a cool gadget that can take computing to places where it wasn't previously practical to go.
There is a problem with the British education system with respect to IT skills.
In 1979 when I was 12, my maths teacher taught the entire class to program in BASIC using pen, paper and a single teletype terminal with a 110 baud connection to the mainframe in City Hall. 1000 pupils shared the computer, but, if you were in the top maths class, you were expected to learn to program. Shortly after we learned FORTRAN and an educational pseudo-assembly language called CESIL. We loved it, and when the ZX81, BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum were launched, many of my peers bought them to continue to program - not to play games. The emphasis on coding continued throughout school and university - mathematicians, engineers and scientists were all expected to be able to cut code.
I'm an accountant now, but when I have some complex data to process I often write a program (much to the distaste of our IT team who don't think that I should be allowed to intrude on their domain). And, as a result, I invariably wipe the floor with colleagues who only know how to use Excel and MS Access.
My son is now 12, and his school has literally hundreds of computers. But programming has been removed from the curriculum and been replaced by lessons in Word, Powerpoint and the Windows GUI. Coding is deemed to be too difficult for the masses and is restricted to a few older puplis who show particular interest. But all my children enjoy programming at home - even my 9-year-old has a go at it.
Perhaps worse, very few PCs now come equipped with the tools needed to write some code. Even Ubuntu, a geek's operating system by any normal measure, has no obvious desktop coding environment - if you don't know that python's hiding away on the command line, you won't find it and even GCC's not installed by default. As for Windows or OS X...
So kids aren't being taught to program in school, and they don't know what they can do with the equipment that they have at home. Is there any surprise that there's a skills shortage?
When I installed IES4Linux, I didn't have to agree to any EULA at all. I have no contract with Microsoft and I've made no agreement with them regarding my usage of the software that they freely distributed to me. Provided I respect their implied copyright by not distributing it further, I'm not sure what claim that they could ever have against me.
Are you parodying a position or do you really believe that? If by fundamentalist you mean a person who believes that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, then I'm one of those. And if by evangelical you mean a born-again Protestant fundamentalist with a personal faith in God, I'm one of those, too.
But I also believe that the origin of the species of life (I accept the correction made above) is pretty much the way science describes it. I can't see any conflict between the two positions. And nor can most of my fundamentalist friends.
This whole debate seems pretty strange to European eyes. I consider myself to be a fundamentalist Bible believing evangelical Christian, but, in Britain, people like me take the view that Genesis describes the evolutionary process pretty well. Although many Evangelicals support Intelligent Design or Young Earth Creationism, there's little opposition within Christian circles to full acceptance of the scientific explanation of the origins of life.
Between this and support for a right-wing social and foreign policy agenda, I sometimes wonder if American evangelicals read the same Bible that I do.