Wednesday May 07, 2008
On The Margins(Masood Mortazavi)
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[ Networks ]
The Self-Ordering Chaos of Communities
2008-05-07 23:30:42.0 --
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[ Technology ]
Java DB 10.4.1
The 10.4.1 version of Java DB, the world's most advanced Java database, has some really cool features -- asynchronous replication, table functions and JMX capabilities. Sun engineers worked within the Apache/Derby community to develop these features: A great team. A great product. A great community! If you're a serious user of Java DB (and/or of Apache Derby) and plan to use this product in your business, you should consider the multi-platform, software support services for Java DB -- Sun's distribution of Apache Derby -- available at some amazing bargain prices at various service plan levels. Sun provides support service plans for Java DB, which is, for all practical purposes, identical to Apache Derby.
2008-04-28 18:05:26.0 --
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[ Technology ]
It Runs Your Company
Monty's T-Shirt says it all.
2008-04-16 00:37:12.0 --
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[ Business ]
Open Source Databases on the Rise
2008-04-08 19:15:34.0 --
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[ Technology ]
The Conference Around the Corner
2008-04-02 00:53:50.0 --
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[ Telecommunications ]
A Suggestion for Skype
Although there are scripts that can be used to have Skype call a particular number at a particular time—acting as some kind of an alarm—it would be great if Skype adds a time and alarm feature with time zone capabilities. I've personally used Skype to join global teleconferences from the U.S., India, Norway and Germany, and this feature would be very useful to me. (Perhaps, such a component already exists. If so, please leave a comment and let me know.)
2008-03-26 09:21:55.0 --
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[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ]
OSDB Events
The best way to learn about major open source databases (e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.) is to attend developer and user conferences. Sun Microsystems sponsors many of these conferences and events. (This April, you can catch Sun folks attending the MySQL conference in Santa Clara, and in May, you can catch them at PGCon in Ottawa.) Finally, if you're interested in Sun technologies and databases, you should become a member of the OpenSolaris Databases Community and start contributing.
2008-03-20 01:06:17.0 --
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[ Economics ]
Microsoft and Open Source Software
As the news of Microsoft's moves last week unfolds, strategists might find it useful to review "Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows," by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat of Harvard Business School. Working Knowledge carries an interview with the authors.
2008-02-24 15:46:41.0 --
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[ Technology ]
"Asset Specificity" and Open-Source Software
Weber seems to be saying that Open Source Software, by virtue of its openness, will reduce asset specificity for those (including enterprises) who consume or use software, releasing them from lock-in. While the effect might be true, the reasoning diverges from the original meaning of the concept of "asset specificity," as coined by Williamson. In The Mechanisms of Governance (Oxford University Press, pp. 59-60), Williamson states that his concept of asset specificity refers to "the degree to which an asset can be redeployed to alternative uses and by alternative users without sacrifice of productive value." To clarify matters further, Williamson notes that there are varieties of asset specificities, e.g. (1) site specificity, (2) physical asset specificity, (3) human asset specificity ("that arises in learning by doing fashion"), (4) dedicated assets, (5) brand-name capital, and (6) temporal specificity. Let me elucidate the concept by giving some examples. If I use some assets, say my Prius, to drive to the local supermarket to buy oranges, I have not used any assets specific to the transaction of buying those oranges. The transaction is a fully market-driven transaction. I could buy the oranges from a large number of groceries that do business near where I live. Now, assume I'm an orange broker in Florida. I may station my operations site near the largest orange groves or near the largest auction market for oranges. I may buy some forensic equipment specific to orange analysis, and pay for membership dues in the orange auction market, etc. I may spend money to brand my brokerage service, calling it "Honest Oranges." Now, I've invested in assets that have a higher degree of specificity (in site, in physical nature, in brand capital, etc.) in order to carry on with the transactions I conduct as an orange broker in Florida. Now, let's turn from oranges to software. When it comes to software, we can have some in-dept discussion of each of the specificity types mentioned by Williamson and see if there are others. For example, the Internet, the digitalization of storage, content and distribution, has almost done away with "site specificity." You can consume software made in city A even if you live 12 time zones away in city B. On the other hand, some software must still be installed in a particular way and on particular hardware, generating a "physical asset specificity" effect. The most important kind of specificity when it comes to software, however, is "human asset specificity." When an enterprise uses open-source software, they still have this aspect of specificity to deal with. For open-source software, as for any software, human specificity arises in learning by doing fashion. In fact, human asset specificity governs the software transactions world much more deeply than many other product types. Unless there is a backing from a supplier that has reduced the need for investments with high degree of "human asset specificity," the user of the open-source software will have to make such investments on its own. This is exactly the reason why we see great consulting, services and integration businesses thrive around open-source software products.
2008-02-11 12:32:51.0 --
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[ Technology ]
Buying PostgreSQL support got easier
Buying support for PostgreSQL on Solaris has become much easier. Just click "Buy Now" on the PostgreSQL support page and you'll be on your way.
2008-01-30 17:59:51.0 --
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[ Technology ]
Data History
2008-01-30 15:59:07.0 --
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[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ]
James Gosling, Monty Widenius, David Axmark, and Brian Aker on Sun's Acquisition of MySQL
2008-01-18 13:57:54.0 --
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[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ]
Sun To Acquire MySQL
2008-01-16 07:06:08.0 --
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[ Technology ]
Favorites
I hear developer.com is hosting a favorites' vote. It takes a moment to vote for your favorite software products of the year!
2007-12-07 08:03:24.0 --
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[ Sun Microsystems Inc. ]
Cooler than this?
MPK (Menlo Park) ... First Friday of August ... What can be cooler than taking a walk around the internal block of the Solaris building? I never knew where offices of all the people I was meeting in meetings were ... I still don't but did meet some as I walked "around the block" ... Friday ... buzzing with buzz of machines, conversation, plans and celebrations! ... What can be cooler in a hot August day?
2007-08-03 10:35:30.0 --
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[ Technology ]
Underground Notes and Voices from OSCon and Ubuntu Live
Some say Sun is as cool as OSCon (if not cooler) because, among most companies that support OSCon, only Sun can produce truly underground notes on OSCon. David Van Couvering reviews Mike Olson's comments about his keynote at OSCon and pontificates about whether the value of Open Source could be limited to the collaboration it fosters. David aptly notes that
By way of further review, David contrasts MySQL as an Open Source project to PostgreSQL as an Open Source project. In a separate underground note from OSCon, Barton George has posted his interview with Free Software Foundation lawyer Eben Moglen. Barton has also produced a series of interviews with some six dignitaries during Ubuntu Live: Mark Shuttleworth. Tim Gardner, Jane Silber, Daniel Holbach, Stephen O'Grady, Jono Bacon.
2007-08-02 10:42:13.0 --
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[ Economics ]
Transaction Cost Economics and Open Source Software
It is good to see someone who has a relatively good understanding of Transaction Cost Economics write about the topic of open source software or software in general:
That's from Steven Weber's The Success of Open Source.
2007-05-15 18:01:26.0 --
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[ Business ]
The Business of Software
After the usual foreword, Michael Cusumano opens his book, The Business of Software, by outlining the main chracteristics of that business:
Cusumano's summary strikes all the important chords when it comes to describing the characteristics of commercially produced software. It misses some important characteristics of open-source software communities and economic networks dependent on them. In an open-source, community project, which (company or private) participant is the producer? Who is paying the production cost? Who is reaping the benefits? However, when it comes to a business built on bundling of open-source software or on applying such software to solve specific problems through various kinds of software extensions and customizations, we return to the general laws described by Cusumano. Then, there are a whole set of companies that may appear to some as software companies, say Google, but they are in fact not software companies at all even if they may produce a great deal of software. This class of companies are indeed more like modern-day AT&Ts or Sprints. Modern day equivalents are web service (e.g. Google Search) or content (e.g. YouTube, Orkut, etc.) or Internet communications (e.g. Skype) concerns. Cusumano's description does not really apply to these companies either. These companies are not in the business of selling software but rather in the business of selling service for a fee (subscription or advertisement). They do software to the extent it helps them to render their services useful and appealing.
2007-05-01 22:28:22.0 --
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[ Economics ]
Political Economy of Open Source Communities
Lots of people have said lots of things about open source communities. Among the books I have seen on shelves and articles in books and online, I've been wanting to read Steven Weber's 2004 book The Success of Open Source but time has never allowed. Finally, I've been able to start and finish the first 15 pages of Weber's book, and I can tell you that it has all the right elements and sources for its analysis of the political economy of open source communities. Mancur Olson's work, transaction cost economists', Chester Barnard's and others' are weaved together beautifully in those pages. I look forward to reading more of it as time allows, and I'll be quoting from Weber, here.
2007-04-03 16:23:35.0 --
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[ Economics ]
Open Source and Property Rights
Open Source development—whether it is OpenOffice, Apache, Open Solaris, Linux (Debian), Sun Studio, Open JDK, Apache Derby (Java DB), PostgreSQL, Glassfish or Netbeans—engages communities in production of value governed by a revolutionary model for property rights, emphasizing open distribution of software rather than the traditional "exclusive-rights" notion of property. The new property model finds its grounding in the use of the Internet as the backbone for parallel development of relatively complex systems of value generated by (non-idyllic) communities of developers—large quantities of value being generated for little, direct financial compensation. In the exclusive-rights model of property ownership, the state uses force (or the threat of force) to prevent "unlawful" use, in order to "secure" those rights and encourage their development. In the open-source model of property ownership, the width of distribution and availability represents the only "security" that needs to be provided. The state's role must be vastly different, and it must be focused on rights of distribution and use, and of mixing. Being a vastly different model of ownership, open source has often confronted a state which wants to apply its traditional understanding of property and its "security." We have witnessed this with property "rights" over content because general content in the digital-distribution world possesses many characteristics similar to software.
2007-03-26 11:19:44.0 --
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DisclaimerI work at Sun Microsystems. The opinions expressed here are purely my own, and neither Sun nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.Coordinates
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