Self-Portraits
A couple of experiments with our Canon EOS and Paint.Net. Click thumbs to enlarge.
YouTube Outage
Back in the late 90’s John Gilmore of the EFF said “the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” Apparently times have changed - the internet now interprets censorship as a short cut and drives straight through it: Details emerge on YouTube block
Ouch.
EU fines Microsoft record $1.35 billion
Dvorak on Sun and MySQL
I actually have a lot of time for John Dvorak - I like CrankyGeeks and enjoy his work on TWIT, etc. But I’m not sure what to make of his recent column on the Sun/MySQL deal in which he says
I’m close to being convinced that Oracle wanted to buy MySQL to kill the product, but knew that it couldn’t pull off the stunt itself. It would be too obvious, especially to European Union regulators. So it sent in a stooge to do the job.
There’s been plenty of conversation about the column in both the professional web media and in the blogosphere, but one thing is missing from all this discourse - no one seems to remember that Oracle bought up their own dual-license-slinging, support-selling open source database company back in 2006 - Sleepycat (Berkeley DB). Two years on, Oracle has pushed Berkeley DB through three major releases, and they are still holding on to the original Sleepycat revenue model (support sales and dual licensing) and the DB is still open source.
Dvorak’s column focuses on Sun’s acquisition record as a predictor of where the MySQL deal will lead - I think it’s probably more revealing to look at Sun’s track record with balancing corporate and community interests in open source development communities like OpenOffice and NetBeans.
Through that lens, the future looks a bit brighter (at least to me).
Did you read Dvorak’s column? Or have you been following the Sun/MySQL story? Leave a comment and let me know your take on the whole thing.
Amazaudible, Micrahoo and MySunQL
BusinessWeek (among others) reports that
“Microsoft (MSFT) has pounced on slumping Internet icon Yahoo (YHOO) with an unsolicited takeover offer of $44.6 billion in its boldest bid yet to challenge Google’s dominance of the lucrative online search and advertising markets.”
This is on the tail of yesterday’s report that Amazon.com is buying Audible.com for “about $300 million” and the news from a couple of weeks back that Sun is pursuing MySQL AB (price tag: $1 billion).
Someone must have chummed the waters.
What do you think about the M&A frenzy? Leave a comment and let me know.
Windows of my Walls
I’ve created windows of my walls
With views of my children
And of my children’s views
Stained glass of crepe paper
Cotton wool sheep
Butterflies and holiday hearts
Blots of glitter and paint
And one joyful stick-father
Wearing a bright blue smile
Dancing in tall grass
Beneath a purple sun
He who I always
Wish to be
For them
For me
I originally wrote this in the summer of 2005. It’s the first of a few older poems I’m posting here in the hope that it inspires me to start writing new ones.