Using animation and capacitive touch screen together for a web based system was unique to Apple. That was innovation. Display postscript which became display pdf was innovation. Objective-C was innovation. Etc..
It is interesting but anti-innovative. They use a more old fashioned sort of "hand crafted" design with modules which is less automated than the designs that people like Samsung use. The result is a chip that is:
a) Better fitted to one unique piece of hardware b) Slower and more expensive than the generic though often the fit makes it equal c) Less power consummative then the generic
I don't think the gaming companies are making that much of an effort. The big push this year has been towards capacitive touch screens with possibly resistive / capacitive. Most gaming laptops don't have this. They don't have the hinge. They aren't retina. What's innovative about them?
2 excellent points. This one and the one where you make the comment about "did anyone every innovate anything". I agree with both, though this one I didn't understand until I read your analysis. Great job!
I don't know of any code in MySQL that wasn't either from MySQL or designed around a particular support app. These victims who worked hard for Monty only to be sold out to Oracle don't exist. MySQL was always pretty clear that the commercial version existed to make profit on. Anyone signing the code over to Monty knew it was for MySQL to make money. These victims don't exist. Can you even name one programmer who claims to have been defrauded in this way who actually contributed to MySQL?
What was the problem with unloading Symphony on consulting support based upon LibreOffice?
I think 3 things:
1) Libre Office had forked further away from the OO 1/2 codebase for Symphony. So it would cost more to merge. The fact that OO is stagnant relative to LO is good for the Symphony merger project.
2) Libre Office was a community project. So IBM couldn't just get Oracle's OK to merge in a few features and be done with it. They would have to negotiate with tons of open source developers that had no particular reason to help IBM offload Symphony. I think there was a real meaningful possibility some of the changes IBM needed to be able to wash their hands of Symphony might have been rejected because they were seen (possibly quite rightly) as making LO worse. I don't see why the Symphony group would want to take that risk.
3) There is no consulting arm of Libre Office. IBM 3 years from now can't say "don't call us talk to Libre Office" they can say "don't call us talk to Oracle". If you are the sort of company that picked Symphony because it was IBM's brand of Open Office, and wanted to know you could buy support, you are going to be very happy being able to buy support from Oracle. That kind of company is likely too conservative to be comfortable buying support from ultra small company X.
____
Regarding MariaDB support, I think you're correct that they're treating it as a competitor. This wasn't really the case for MySQL. IBM provided a supported version of MySQL.
True but Oracle is there #1 competitor for DB2 followed by SQLServer. With MariaDB being close to MySQL and owned by Oracle I can't see any reason for IBM to treat it as friendly. I don't think this is hostility towards Open Source in anyway. Postgres Plus Advanced Server (PPAS) is being actively developed by IBM and officially supported. 15 years ago MySQL was part of the LAMP stack for applications that were never going to land IBM server contracts run by a small company and so IBM likely saw it as a way to sell consulting services.
I don't agree with you that Monty screwed over the community. I think he made tremendous contributions and fought tough battles during critical years. I think he marshaled resources effectively. And if he got rich off that, good for him.
As far as I understand it IBM's work with Open Office is mainly retiring their old OO fork Lotus Symphony. They want stagnant and solid consulting support to offload this line of business i.e. to offload Symphony. I wouldn't read into this any sort of non Lotus Symphony specific IBM preference.
As for not supporting it I'm still not quite following. For example when I go to the DB2 database comparison page they list plusses and minus of Maria vs. MySQL: for example Maria having graph indexes and function based indexes; along with disadvantages like MySQL's better backup functionality. How is that not being supportive? They are treating as a competitor with respect? What is IBM not doing that you think they should be doing?
what exactly can you integrate with excel that you can't integrate with libreoffice calc?
All sorts of ERP systems have an Excel based UI, so they present their data and functions inside Excel. SAP and Microsoft Dynamics both do this. Since the primary users of ERP are in finance and finance often has to work with the ERP data that is an extremely import feature that easily justifies Excel for the financial team.
Calc is not terrible and while worse than Excel it is not vastly inferior to Excel. You are exaggerating quite a bit what are relatively minor differences.
I was a Linux user starting in 1995. I have yet to have a Linux work well with whatever my current hardware is.
Right now for example I'm having horrrible trouble with EFI boot sequences. If I could those to work I know I'd have a whole nothing round of problems with high DPI screen. I might have wireless or bluetooth problems since those are common.
Linux does a tremendous job running on a huge range of hardware given its limited budget for QA on hardware configs and mechanisms for complex problem resolution. But it doesn't hold a candle to Windows with a high budget for hardware testing and many mechanisms for problem resolution.
My guess is they would lose. That sounds like trying to assert a patent as part of a copyright and I think the courts would see it that way as well and not look friendly on trying to bypass the patent mechanism.
Well first off Excel isn't all that powerful a spreadsheet. It is unclear what you consider so special about it. Excel is a good spread sheet. But it isn't top of the line things like: http://www.quantrix.com/ are far better for many types of power users. As far as Excel for Mac, with the exceptions of VBA I doubt there is much of importance you use that's missing.
Any copyright or license can be terminated by court approval in the USA. Oracle's rights to Oracle database could be terminated by a court. So that doesn't mean anything in particular.
In particular the article is kinda BS. The problem with an open source license from the perspective of the article is that licenses included clause to relicense.
A has copyright on X A licenses B to license X B licenses X to C A goes bankrupt
the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense your code however they want.
Not quite: the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense their code however they want. The GPL would still apply to all the old code. They would have to make substantial contributions so a to effectively be creating a proprietary fork of GPLed code.
Furthermore, in some jurisdictions, the bankruptcy trustee, administrator, or court can terminate existing licenses—meaning that users couldn't even use an older version of the software, since they would no longer have a license to do so.
The trustee has the authority to do what the original copyright holder could do. The GPL can only be terminated under specific conditions. Those conditions wouldn't be met...
The GPL relies on copyright law. The open source community can't create its own legal structures, it can use pre-existing legal structures for its own purposes.
There is no concept corresponding to what you are looking for in copyright law.
There is nothing funny about the GPL here. MySQL required copyright for contributions. You didn't contribute under the GPL, you contributed by relinquishing your copyright.
What do you mean "lip service". What built the entire mass of open operating systems was the LAMP stack starting in 1994: MySQL is the M in LAMP. From an open source GPL perspective Monty took commercial developers, charged them money to use a GPL product and used that money to fund GPL development. What's wrong with that?
Slashdot Mirror
Using animation and capacitive touch screen together for a web based system was unique to Apple. That was innovation. Display postscript which became display pdf was innovation. Objective-C was innovation. Etc..
It is interesting but anti-innovative. They use a more old fashioned sort of "hand crafted" design with modules which is less automated than the designs that people like Samsung use. The result is a chip that is:
a) Better fitted to one unique piece of hardware
b) Slower and more expensive than the generic though often the fit makes it equal
c) Less power consummative then the generic
I don't think the gaming companies are making that much of an effort. The big push this year has been towards capacitive touch screens with possibly resistive / capacitive. Most gaming laptops don't have this. They don't have the hinge. They aren't retina. What's innovative about them?
He didn't say cheaper he said more upgradeable.
2 excellent points. This one and the one where you make the comment about "did anyone every innovate anything". I agree with both, though this one I didn't understand until I read your analysis. Great job!
I understand. But I'm unclear how that is Apple's fault and not Fujo/Xerox's fault.
I don't know of any code in MySQL that wasn't either from MySQL or designed around a particular support app. These victims who worked hard for Monty only to be sold out to Oracle don't exist. MySQL was always pretty clear that the commercial version existed to make profit on. Anyone signing the code over to Monty knew it was for MySQL to make money. These victims don't exist. Can you even name one programmer who claims to have been defrauded in this way who actually contributed to MySQL?
I think 3 things:
1) Libre Office had forked further away from the OO 1/2 codebase for Symphony. So it would cost more to merge. The fact that OO is stagnant relative to LO is good for the Symphony merger project.
2) Libre Office was a community project. So IBM couldn't just get Oracle's OK to merge in a few features and be done with it. They would have to negotiate with tons of open source developers that had no particular reason to help IBM offload Symphony. I think there was a real meaningful possibility some of the changes IBM needed to be able to wash their hands of Symphony might have been rejected because they were seen (possibly quite rightly) as making LO worse. I don't see why the Symphony group would want to take that risk.
3) There is no consulting arm of Libre Office. IBM 3 years from now can't say "don't call us talk to Libre Office" they can say "don't call us talk to Oracle". If you are the sort of company that picked Symphony because it was IBM's brand of Open Office, and wanted to know you could buy support, you are going to be very happy being able to buy support from Oracle. That kind of company is likely too conservative to be comfortable buying support from ultra small company X.
____
True but Oracle is there #1 competitor for DB2 followed by SQLServer. With MariaDB being close to MySQL and owned by Oracle I can't see any reason for IBM to treat it as friendly. I don't think this is hostility towards Open Source in anyway. Postgres Plus Advanced Server (PPAS) is being actively developed by IBM and officially supported. 15 years ago MySQL was part of the LAMP stack for applications that were never going to land IBM server contracts run by a small company and so IBM likely saw it as a way to sell consulting services.
I'd take it as a complement.
____
Anyway thank you for clarifying what you meant.
I don't agree with you that Monty screwed over the community. I think he made tremendous contributions and fought tough battles during critical years. I think he marshaled resources effectively. And if he got rich off that, good for him.
As far as I understand it IBM's work with Open Office is mainly retiring their old OO fork Lotus Symphony. They want stagnant and solid consulting support to offload this line of business i.e. to offload Symphony. I wouldn't read into this any sort of non Lotus Symphony specific IBM preference.
As for not supporting it I'm still not quite following. For example when I go to the DB2 database comparison page they list plusses and minus of Maria vs. MySQL: for example Maria having graph indexes and function based indexes; along with disadvantages like MySQL's better backup functionality. How is that not being supportive? They are treating as a competitor with respect? What is IBM not doing that you think they should be doing?
All sorts of ERP systems have an Excel based UI, so they present their data and functions inside Excel. SAP and Microsoft Dynamics both do this. Since the primary users of ERP are in finance and finance often has to work with the ERP data that is an extremely import feature that easily justifies Excel for the financial team.
Calc is not terrible and while worse than Excel it is not vastly inferior to Excel. You are exaggerating quite a bit what are relatively minor differences.
I was a Linux user starting in 1995. I have yet to have a Linux work well with whatever my current hardware is.
Right now for example I'm having horrrible trouble with EFI boot sequences. If I could those to work I know I'd have a whole nothing round of problems with high DPI screen. I might have wireless or bluetooth problems since those are common.
Linux does a tremendous job running on a huge range of hardware given its limited budget for QA on hardware configs and mechanisms for complex problem resolution. But it doesn't hold a candle to Windows with a high budget for hardware testing and many mechanisms for problem resolution.
Sounds like where Android is headed.
My guess is they would lose. That sounds like trying to assert a patent as part of a copyright and I think the courts would see it that way as well and not look friendly on trying to bypass the patent mechanism.
Well first off Excel isn't all that powerful a spreadsheet. It is unclear what you consider so special about it. Excel is a good spread sheet. But it isn't top of the line things like: http://www.quantrix.com/ are far better for many types of power users. As far as Excel for Mac, with the exceptions of VBA I doubt there is much of importance you use that's missing.
That sounds to me like Fuji/Xerox not supporting CUPS. If there was a PPD that worked it should have been on their website.
Any copyright or license can be terminated by court approval in the USA. Oracle's rights to Oracle database could be terminated by a court. So that doesn't mean anything in particular.
In particular the article is kinda BS. The problem with an open source license from the perspective of the article is that licenses included clause to relicense.
A has copyright on X
A licenses B to license X
B licenses X to C
A goes bankrupt
Why does C lose their license?
Not quite: the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense their code however they want. The GPL would still apply to all the old code. They would have to make substantial contributions so a to effectively be creating a proprietary fork of GPLed code.
The trustee has the authority to do what the original copyright holder could do. The GPL can only be terminated under specific conditions. Those conditions wouldn't be met...
Bruce I'm not following how IBM is partnering with Oracle on the MySQL deal. That line isn't clear.
The GPL relies on copyright law. The open source community can't create its own legal structures, it can use pre-existing legal structures for its own purposes.
There is no concept corresponding to what you are looking for in copyright law.
Why would you be forced to move away from MySQL without either:
a) having an applications specific / database specific reason
a) outgrowing it
There is nothing funny about the GPL here. MySQL required copyright for contributions. You didn't contribute under the GPL, you contributed by relinquishing your copyright.
What do you mean "lip service". What built the entire mass of open operating systems was the LAMP stack starting in 1994: MySQL is the M in LAMP. From an open source GPL perspective Monty took commercial developers, charged them money to use a GPL product and used that money to fund GPL development. What's wrong with that?
No it is tested in court and the answer is no. A license cannot be retroactively applied.