Mark Atwood - Slashdot User

Comment The whole thing was pointless anyway (Score 5, Insightful) 157

by Mark Atwood on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @05:49PM (#23317792) Attached to: MySQL Reverses Decision On Closed Source

The MySQL software that was originally proposed to be closed source are portions of the online backup drivers. Each such driver has to be written in close cooperation with the developers of each storage engine. Well...

InnoDB already has an online backup tool, and even if/when they revise their tool to use this new API, it's still going to be theirs, open or closed, not the property of the MySQL Group.

Online backup of the engines for CSV, Blackhole, and Memcached doesn't even make sense. Archive already has a publicly available open source online backup tool.

Online backup makes sense for Maria, I don't see MontyW writing crippleware into his work.

How about MyISAM? I think that work is already done, but, the horse is already out of the barn, in that the online backup drivers for it are already publically available..

Looking even closer, the part that was going to be closed was not even the entire online backup driver set, but just compression and encryption. Any halfway competent developer would be able to hook in the necessary calls to azio, zlib, and openssl, and replicate the work.

So this is a big tempest over something that doesn't matter, and couldnt have happened anyway.

Plus, best practices for backup dont even use or want online backup. The Right Way to backup a real production MySQL instances is via filesystem snapshot, using something like LVM or ZFS.

As a small aside, the Slashdot headline of the original article was not entirely accurate. It wasn't the Sun executives who decided this. It was the MySQL executives. What that means, especially in light of the keynote speeches given by CEO Jonathan Schwartz and VP Rich Green, is interesting, and remains to be publically seen.

Submission + - MySQL Reverses Decision on Close Source (krow.net) 1

Submitted by

krow

on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @05:13PM

krow writes: "I am very happy to be announcing that MySQL will be forgoing close sourcing portions of the MySQL Server. Kaj has the official statement in his blog. No portion of the server of the sever will be closed source including backup, encryption, or any storage engines we ship. To quote Kaj "the encryption and compression backup features will be open source". This is a change from what was previously posted here on Slashdot. I've posted some additional thoughts on my own blog concerning how we keep open source from becoming crippleware. Word has it that we will also have a panel at this year's OSCON discussing this relevant topic. Contrary to the previous Slashdot post, this shows Sun's continued commitment to Open Source."

Hacking Canon Point-and-Shoot Cameras 242

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @04:56PM from the now-don't-brick-it dept.

Pig Hogger writes "If you're stuck with a cheap Canon point-and-shoot camera and have feature envy over the neighbor's sophisticated latest model, fret not! According to this LifeHacker article, the CHDK project allows nearly complete programmatic control of cheap Canon point-and-shoot cameras, enabling users to add features, up to and including games and BASIC scripting."

Florida Judge Smacks Down RIAA 301

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @04:11PM from the which-part-of-no dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA is going to have to face the music in Tampa, Florida, and answer the charges of extortion, trespass, conspiracy, unlicensed investigation, and computer fraud and abuse that have been leveled against them there. And the judge delivered his ruling against them in in pretty unceremonious fashion — receiving their dismissal motion last night, and denying the motion this morning. The RIAA's unvarying M.O., when hit with counterclaims, is to make a motion to dismiss them. It did just that in one Tampa case, UMG v. Del Cid, but the judge upheld 5 of the 6 counterclaims. The RIAA quickly settled that one. When a new case came up in the same Tampa courthouse before the very same judge, and the same 5 counterclaims were leveled against the record companies, I opined that 'it is highly unlikely that the RIAA will make a motion to dismiss counterclaims,' since I knew they'd be risking sanctions if they did. Well I guess I underestimated the chutzpah — or the propensity for frivolous motion practice — of the RIAA lawyers, as they in essence thumbed their nose at the judge, making the dismissal motion anyway, telling District Judge Richard A. Lazzara that his earlier decision had been wrong. The judge wasted no time telling the record companies that he did not agree (PDF)."

Submission + - MySQL Community Speaks up on Proprietary Add Ons

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21, 2008 @12:23PM

An anonymous reader writes: There has been a flurry of posts from MySQL's open source developers on their thoughts around MySQL deciding to make proprietary extensions to the MySQL server. The "Monty" of MySQL has spoken out on his thoughts about Sun/MySQL adding proprietary features to MySQL. Brian Aker has also posted what he believes differentiates Open Source from Crippleware.

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