We’re continuing to see signs that the dominant GPL open source license may be fading from favor among commercial open source software players. The latest move away from the GPL comes from content management software vendor Alfresco, which is moving to the LGPL after originally releasing its code under the GPL three years ago. The reasoning for the shift, according to Alfresco CEO John Newton, is the company sees greater opportunity beyond being a software application, particularly given the emergence of the Content Management Interoperability Services standard. Alfresco won mostly praise for its move, and it does make sense given where open source is going these days.

I believe the emerging trend away …

Dear MySQL Users,

Its only been a week since last release, and already the MySQL Workbench Team has a 5.2 beta 5 ready. This Workbench Beta 5 build includes fixes for 26 bugs – 5 P1, 8 P2, 9 P3 and 4 P4.

We want to thank all the people who have been testing MySQL Workbench 5.2 alphas and betas and taking the time to file bugs and provide valuable feedback. We have fixed many bugs since last release and worked on some other details as well.
MySQL Workbench 5.2 Beta 5 provides:

1. Data Modeling
2. Query (upgrade from MySQL Query Browser)
3. Admin (upgrade from MySQL Administrator)

If you are a current user of MySQL Query Browser or MySQL Administrator, we look forward to your feedback on all the new capabilities we are delivering in a single unified MySQL Workbench

As always, you will find binaries for the various platforms on our download pages.

Please get …

Oracle closes Sun acquisition. The state of the union at Red Hat. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Oracle has completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

# Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst discussed the current State of the Union at Red Hat.

# Oracle told eWeek Java will be “business as usual”.

# CNet published Scott McNealy’s farewell email to Sun employees.

# The WSJ reported that Larry Ellison …

WordPress Foundation formed. Reaction to Oracle-Sun approval. And more.

WordPress Foundation formed
# Matt Mullenwag launched the WordPress Foundation.

Reaction to Oracle-Sun’s EC approval
# In a memo Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz encouraged the company’s employees to emotionally resign from Sun.

# EnterpriseDB and PostgreSQL co-founder Bruce Momjian issued a statement on the EC’s decision to approve Oracle-Sun.

# Mike Hogan …

Topics for this podcast:

*Open source in consumer devices
*VMware-Zimbra deal highlights open source, cloud
*A capitalist’s guide to open source licensing
*Latest on Oracle-Sun-MySQL, M&A implications

iTunes or direct download (24:48, 5.7 MB)

EC approves Oracle-Sun. Google patents MapReduce. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

EC approves Oracle-Sun
The European Commission cleared Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. While Larry Ellison is set to unveil Oracle’s Sun strategy on January 27th, Monty Widenius said he will go to the Court of First Instance to appeal the decision.

# Pro-open source political party formed in Hungary.

# Google …

We are proud to announce the 4th public Beta of MySQL Workbench 5.2.

We want to thank all the people who have been testing MySQL Workbench 5.2 alphas and betas and taking the time to file bugs and provide valuable feedback. We have fixed many bugs since last release and worked on some other details as well. Also, there is new platform included with this beta – CentOS 5.4 Linux Packages (RPMs)
NOTE: We have a known issue with Centos SSH Tunnel support that we are working on so avoid that for now.

This build includes fixes for 65 bugs – 7 P1, 26 P2 and 32 P3.

MySQL Workbench 5.2 Beta 3 provides:

1. Data Modeling
2. Query (upgrade from MySQL Query Browser)
3. Admin (upgrade from MySQL Administrator)

If you are a current user of MySQL Query Browser or MySQL Administrator, we look forward to your feedback on all the new capabilities we are delivering in a …

Monty turns his attention to the East. The value of JBoss to Red Hat. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

# Monty Widenius predicted that the EU will clear Oracle-Sun “any moment”, turning his attention to Russia and China.

# Meanwhile the release candidate of MariaDB 5.1 is now …

VMware confirms Zimbra buy. Facebook sponsors Apache Foundation. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

# VMware confirmed its acquisition of Zimbra from Yahoo.

# Facebook became a gold sponsor of the Apache Foundation and outlined its …

Since Ubuntu 8.04 aka Hardy Heron, I've had issues with every new release. As Ubuntu evolves into being a viable desktop OS alternative, its complexity has been growing and with the new and improved looks new challenges arise. This bug in particular has been very difficult to diagnose and I can't imagine anyone without enough Linux experience to overcome it on their own, so I decided to summarize the steps I took to fix it ... and vent my frustration at the end.
The SymptomI came across the issue for the first time while trying Ubuntu's Karmic Netbook remix. After overcoming the typical Broadcom wifi driver, Network Manager would connect, but Firefox would fail to load the web pages 90% of the time. Using ping in the command line worked just fine. Maybe I needed to update the software packages to get the latest patches, surprise, apt-get was having similar problems and timing out. So the problem …