I’m reading Intellectual Property and Open Source by Van Lindberg at the moment, and despite being about a relatively dry topic, I must admit that it’s a fascinating read.

Van Lindberg introduces the book by talking about the comments that end up on Slashdot.org, almost certainly prefixed by the expression IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) where people defend, discuss, and rip people up about the legalities of open source and the various licenses. Van Lindberg also talks about how he spends much of his time translating the contents of various legal documents into engineer speak and back again.

Despite being a proponent and long time user of free software and open source for the best part of my working life, I’ll admit to being completely ignorant of many of the issues. This isn’t through lack …

At the end of the Orlando meeting in January this year when the Sun acquisition was announced, I remember sitting next to MySQL’s co-founder David Axmark in the bus going to some evening event. “What do you want to do now, with so many opportunities opening up?” was my question to him, partly as his friend, partly as his colleague and partly as his line manager. David seemed very confident in the future of MySQL within Sun, but less sure about his own future role.

With that as a background, and knowing David since well over 20 years, I was not all that surprised to read his resignation letter, and in particular his reasoning for resigning:

I have thought about my role at Sun and decided that I am better off in smaller organisations. I HATE all the rules that I need to follow, and I also HATE breaking them. It would be far better for me to “retire” from employment and work with MySQL and Sun on a less formal …

If there is one thing that I terribly miss after moving to this country, that would be the variety of Mangoes in India. I've been asked at the United States Customs if I'm importing any mangoes. The fruit's flavor, fragrance and color is just great so I don't blame them at all. There is even International Mango Festival conducted every year since 1987 in Delhi. The festival features more than 550 varieties for visitors to view and taste.

I can talk at lengths about the fruit Mango but this entry is about Mango*. So what is it ?

As part of a project of Technocation, Inc I took a whole bunch of videos at OSCon 2008. The conference was about a month ago, and about 2 weeks ago I’d finished processing and uploading all the videos, but it was only today where I had the 5-6 hours I needed to finish posting all the video, and making this matrix of video.

The video may not be the quality that the O’Reilly folks took and put up on blip tv’s OSCon site, but all the videos here are freely downloadable or playable in your browser.

(more…)

I had a great time at O'Reilly's 10th annual Open Source Convention aka OSCON08.  I will post later about the conference itself including the podcasts I did, the announcements we made etc.  For now, here are some pics I took from the Sun Zend bash that was held in the Double Tree parking lot (which actually isn't used as a parking lot).

Above -- Row 1: (L) Tim Bray all dressed up with no place to go; (R) …

I had a great time at O'Reilly's 10th annual Open Source Convention aka OSCON08.  I will post later about the conference itself including the podcasts I did, the announcements we made etc.  For now, here are some pics I took from the Sun Zend bash that was held in the Double Tree parking lot (which actually isn't used as a parking lot).

Above -- Row 1: (L) Tim Bray all dressed up with no place to go; (R) …

I had a great time at O'Reilly's 10th annual Open Source Convention aka OSCON08.  I will post later about the conference itself including the podcasts I did, the announcements we made etc.  For now, here are some pics I took from the Sun Zend bash that was held in the Double Tree parking lot (which actually isn't used as a parking lot).

Above -- Row 1: (L) Tim Bray all dressed up with no place to go; (R) …

In about 20 minutes I leave for the airport, arriving tonight in lovely Portland, OR to attend OSCON.  This will be my third appearance there and I look forward to listening, learning, being interviewed and podcasting.  In fact it was at last year's OSCON that I kicked off my foray into the wild and wacky world of podcasting.    A year later I've got over 70 under my belt and am looking to grab a few more.

What to look for 

As I mentioned previously, Dalibor will be giving a talk and as Ken points out, Sun will be having its "coach potato" booth as …

In about 20 minutes I leave for the airport, arriving tonight in lovely Portland, OR to attend OSCON.  This will be my third appearance there and I look forward to listening, learning, being interviewed and podcasting.  In fact it was at last year's OSCON that I kicked off my foray into the wild and wacky world of podcasting.    A year later I've got over 70 under my belt and am looking to grab a few more.

What to look for 

As I mentioned previously, Dalibor will be giving a talk and as Ken points out, Sun will be having its "coach potato" …

In about 20 minutes I leave for the airport, arriving tonight in lovely Portland, OR to attend OSCON.  This will be my third appearance there and I look forward to listening, learning, being interviewed and podcasting.  In fact it was at last year's OSCON that I kicked off my foray into the wild and wacky world of podcasting.    A year later I've got over 70 under my belt and am looking to grab a few more.

What to look for 

As I mentioned previously, Dalibor will be giving a talk and as Ken points out, Sun will be having its "coach potato" …