It is no joke that computer hardware has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past decade. 10 years ago, multicore systems were expensive and high-end; today, your grandmother may have one and probably have no clue what she has!

Alas, application software has not kept pace. The Linux OS has done a fair job at being able to leverage some of the power multicore systems offer us, but applications running on them have not. The same can be said more or less for Windows, but it’s been a long while since I did anything systems-level with Windows. But the same issues do apply, however.

We are today with the multicore situation where we were in the 80′s and the 90′s with the multithreaded issues. Back then, CPUs grew support for multithreaded programming, but software — including some OSes — were slow to adopt. The Macintosh, when it was first released in 1984, would only support “cooperative” multitasking when the underlying …

When I joined MySQL back in June of 2005, one of the first “MySQL Truths” I learned and repeated often when discussing MySQL with others was “release early, release often.” If you’ve been using MySQL for any length of time, you know what that statement means – it meant that MySQL was: (1) dedicated to getting new features and enhancements into the hands of its community so the software’s quality could be validated; (2) eager to take early feedback on those features so the input could rapidly be incorporated back into the product allowing everyone to benefit; (3) committed to very frequent releases of the software so helpful new features and/or external contributions that were ready for action could quickly be put into play and not sit idle on the shelf. And if you’ve been around Open Source for a while now, you know this is the spirit in which most providers of Open Source software operate.

In an earlier post, the pursuit of openness, I announced that MySQL is working at a new release model.

There are still a few details to sort out, but the general plan is ready. The new release model has been approved and starts to operate immediately.

The basic principles of this model are:

• The trunk is always at least in beta quality.
• A milestone starts in beta quality ( never in alpha) with a merge between the trunk and a stage tree;
• Milestone releases, with RC quality, released every three to six months.
• Integration windows between milestones allow the insertion of new features from stage trees
• GA releases happen every 12 to 18 months;
• There are not more than two releases in active …

In an earlier post, the pursuit of openness, I announced that MySQL is working at a new release model.

There are still a few details to sort out, but the general plan is ready. The new release model has been approved and starts to operate immediately.

The basic principles of this model are:

• The trunk is always at least in beta quality.
• A milestone starts in beta quality ( never in alpha) with a merge between the trunk and a stage tree;
• Milestone releases, with RC quality, released every three to six months.
• Integration windows between milestones allow the insertion of new features from stage trees
• GA releases happen every 12 to 18 months;
• There are not more than two releases in active …

In an earlier post, the pursuit of openness, I announced that MySQL is working at a new release model.

There are still a few details to sort out, but the general plan is ready. The new release model has been approved and starts to operate immediately.

The basic principles of this model are:

• The trunk is always at least in beta quality.
• A milestone starts in beta quality ( never in alpha) with a merge between the trunk and a stage tree;
• Milestone releases, with RC quality, released every three to six months.
• Integration windows between milestones allow the insertion of new features from stage trees
• GA releases happen every 12 to 18 months;
• There are not more than two releases in active …

As you may have heard, we're switching to a new release model with the upcoming MySQL 5.4 release.

If you are curious to learn more about what will change in the way in which future versions MySQL will be developed and released, make sure to attend our next MySQL University session about The New MySQL Release Model on Thursday, 11th of June, 14:00 UTC. Tomas Ulin, our director of MySQL server development will go through the planned changes and would also like to get your input and feedback on these changes.

We're using …

On my last count, there are now 20+ Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) signatories whose names appear on the master list and who are interested in contributing to MySQL. Only this week, three new members signed the SCA.

These 22+ signatories have all been added since mid-February when we launched the new, Sun-compliant SCA signing process. Before the end of 2009, if we proceed at this same rate, MySQL SCA signatories list should grow to about 70 to 90 contributors.

In the meantime, contributions from many of these contributors have already been accepted and integrated. (I had earlier pointed to Armin Schöffmann's contribution as a simple example of how all this works.)

Some people continue to …

On my last count, there are now 20+ Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) signatories whose names appear on the master list and who are interested in contributing to MySQL. Only this week, three new members signed the SCA.

These 22+ signatories have all been added since mid-February when we launched the new, Sun-compliant SCA signing process. Before the end of 2009, if we proceed at this same rate, MySQL SCA signatories list should grow to about 70 to 90 contributors.

In the meantime, contributions from many of these contributors have already been accepted and integrated. (I had earlier pointed to Armin Schöffmann's contribution as a simple example of how all this works.)

Some people continue to …

On my last count, there are now 20+ Sun Contributor Agreement (SCA) signatories whose names appear on the master list and who are interested in contributing to MySQL. Only this week, three new members signed the SCA.

These 22+ signatories have all been added since mid-February when we launched the new, Sun-compliant SCA signing process. Before the end of 2009, if we proceed at this same rate, MySQL SCA signatories list should grow to about 70 to 90 contributors.

In the meantime, contributions from many of these contributors have already been accepted and integrated. (I had earlier pointed to Armin Schöffmann's contribution as a simple example of how all this works.)

Some people continue to …

I oddly just realized now that Mozilla Firefox is not handling client-side image maps correctly as it should with a DTD of XHTML 1.1 Strict in text/html. I will not go into test cases unless one finds it necessary as everything has been laid out in the two links below. However, why has this not been resolved or is there a proper solution to this matter? I have not been able to find a answers and oddly this issue has been brought up back in 2001. One would think enough time has past.

Any explanation, comments, or help would be greatly appreciated.

Source: Image map handling
Source: Bug 109445 – Referencing a client-side image map declared with id attribute doesn’t work in text/html (usemap)