Are you a user of Microsoft Windows? Are you a user of a non-licensed copy of Microsoft Windows? Does it happen to be Windows XP Professional? Have you seen “blackouts“?

Apparently, from about the end of last month (August 27 2008, to be precise), users of pirated copies of Microsoft Windows XP Professional that also happen to be connected to the Internet will see their screens go black, and have no icons visible.

The esteemed folk at Microsoft Malaysia seem to think that there are 8.6 million users of Windows XP Professional in Malaysia (seems like a huge number, considering the population), and about three million will suffer from these “blackouts”. Only 35% of Windows XP Professional users are pirates?

Its a most interesting tactic. Annoy the user by allowing them to change their …

The best performer at the workshop will be awarded a very appropriate prize. A copy of …

Until this week Infobright’s claim to open source fame was its partnership with MySQL that enabled its analytical data warehousing software to act as a storage engine for the open source database.

However, the company is now taking the open source route itself by releasing the code behind its Infobright data warehouse (formerly Brighthouse) as Infobright Community Edition.

Earlier this month the company announced that it was moving to a subscription model for the commercial version of the product, Infobright Enterprise Edition, which comes with “enhanced features, services and support, warranty” amongst other things.

The company has also announced a $10m Series C investment …

The Software Freedom Day 2008 is approaching. The event will take place wherever you want. If you are interested, just register a team, gather a few friends, and start organizing that in your street, at a local pub, in your university, or wherever you see fit.

MySQL people are very conscious about open source, and we decided to participate to the event somehow. For starters, Sun is a sponsor, and that is a good sign that we care. But we need also to make our presence known. So the initial plan was that every Sun community would encourage its members to create a local Software Freedom Day team and participate.

However, on September 20, the designated day, 250 Sun/MySQL engineers will be in Riga, Latvia, in the middle of our annual developers meeting.

Not a …

Knut Anders Hatlen writes about memcached user-defined functions (UDF) for Java DB on OpenSolaris.

Knut has also mentioned the recent release of Apache Derby 10.4.2. A corresponding Java DB release should be available for download soon. (Usually this happens immediately but we're all at a developers' conference for the next couple of …

Sun is a huge company. So it comes as no surprise that I’m finding out about Project Kenai via Tim Bray, instead of some internal mailing list (believe me, there must be thousands).

Tim’s got a Q&A with Nick Sieger, who’s one of the chieftains behind Kenai. I find it amusing that the comparison is made against Google Code and GitHub - has SourceForge hit irrelevancy? I’m surprised Launchpad isn’t mentioned.

Very Cover Flow like UI, with slider, etc. That’s Elliot Murphy, ex-Dolphin, current Ubuntero in the pic above

Nick goes on to say “We need a place to nurture and grow our open source communities that we …

CA and IBM, two of the so-called Big Four in systems management software, announced this week a federated configuration management database (CMDB) system for interoperability of their software. Something like this comoing from two of Big Four (BMC, CA, HP and IBM) wouldn’t normally hold much meaning for open source players such as GroundWork, Hyperic and Zenoss, but it actually does for a couple of reasons.

First, part of the technology that CA and IBM are using to link up their systems management software, which allows it to share information between the two CMDBs, is actually open source software itself from the Eclipse Cosmos Project. CA and IBM said the Eclipse Cosmos software accelerated implementation of the CMDB Federation (CMDBf) specification and the two vendors plan to contribute code …

Still no official news on the rumour that Monty Widenius has left Sun, but Dave Rosenberg confirmed over the weekend that he is leaving MuleSource, the open source ESB vendor he founded in 2006 with Ross Mason, creator of the Mule project.

“After two and a half years I’ve decided to transition out of my operating role at MuleSource and will be devoting my full time efforts to a new company I have been working on,” he wrote on Friday. “I initiated a CEO search in June and we expect to have a new person in place by the end of the year at the latest.

“I started the search because I felt like a more …

Valleywag reports that Monty Widenius has quit Sun. The Pythian Group reckons its true. Kaj Arno’s non-denial denial would appear to confirm it despite his protestations otherwise.

“Technically there is no resignation letter. However, I spoke to Monty yesterday, and yes, resignation is an option he considers,” writes Kaj before expanding on some of the reasons that Monty might consider leaving Sun and how the MySQL project would continue without him (or without him as an employee at any rate).

He concludes: “In summary, I can neither confirm nor deny the rumour. But I hope my posting has shed some light on the …