Sunday July 06, 2008 links for 2008-07-06
-
Along with the Presentation Plug-In, this is the OpenOffice.org extension I'd been waiting for. It allows me to open PDF files in OpenOffice.org. Still work to do (it's only a v0.3) but already it works well enough for copying text blocks.
-
This is the most important talk I have yet seen on TED. The message: the best thing you can do for yourself and the planet is probably to change the way you eat. As Pollan says, "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."
-
How come this meme is popping up all over the world at the same time (that is, last-minute amendments to legislation to criminalise downloads)?
Friday July 04, 2008 links for 2008-07-04
-
Yep, I agree. But it takes time, because there are a lot of people involved and there's a business depending on most of the outcomes that applies pressures and slows down changes. I suspect this is the same in many other places.
-
Happiness is never having to tell a lie (becuase someone else does it for you).
-
Awesome free album from Amazon US this week. It's a sampler of tracks from the Naxos catalogue of early music. Drifting away to calm canticles.
-
This really sucks. Even growing your own at home is not safe.
-
Huge problem for the cloud computing model. Regardless of any Terms of Service, a hostile party may gain access to your data and usage patterns simply by convincing some judge somewhere. Solutions, anyone?
Thursday July 03, 2008 links for 2008-07-03
-
Congratulations to Adobe, very pleased to see this step for a variety of reasons.
Wednesday July 02, 2008 links for 2008-07-02
-
Apparently only 15% of hotels charge for internet access these days.
-
Jargon is not always a bad thing.
-
Dean Ornish does it again - a life-changing video in under 4 minutes. Best thing I have watched in ages.
-
The Java ME community is the next to get community members as governance leaders.
-
Not that these "watch lists" need much more discrediting, but the fact Mandela is still on one even now seems to render them ridiculous.
-
I watched this and agree with Treehugger: Jeremy Clarkson should be ashamed.
Tuesday July 01, 2008 links for 2008-07-01
-
I wonder whatthe number is for a Smart Roadster?
-
Very interesting reading. I expected Google to be there on the front page but they aren't.
-
I'd like to get one but none of the local garden or DIY stores carry them (waaaay too dangerous). This article lists a rather serious source. Any other ideas?
-
Very interesting indeed. I'd also like them to investigate the opportunities offered by exceptions to enforceability (for example in relation to both standards and community-based development).
Monday June 30, 2008
Sunday June 29, 2008 Pot, Kettle and the required EULA
Having held fire for a few days to make sure I was cool-headed, I was about to go to comment on a poisonous little posting on a ZDNet journalist blog. I wrote a cool-headed reply and clicked "post".
Then I found that despite the appearance of openness (no hint on the comment form of all this), ZDNet has no interest in "community comment". They are actually cynically trying to capture reader data so they can "monetise" it.
To post a comment, I would have to go through a multi-step registration process and fill out the form shown over to the right (which requires personal information including a postal address, requires I accept their EULA and is set to "opt in" for spam by default - I have annotated the version on Flickr if you click through). There's no way I am doing that. I suggest you take the same attitude to them and avoid giving them any sort of support until they fix this cynical community attitude.
The most delicious irony though is they were criticising me for poor community skills...
Saturday June 28, 2008 links for 2008-06-28
-
The talk on Scala at Jazoon was fascinating - looking forward to the NetBeans support getting to a state where I can try it.
-
Interview on Sun and Open Source I did yesterday in Munich.
-
Amazon still whipping Apple's hide with their DRM-free MP3 store, not least with this page of reduced price albums. I haven't bought anything from iTunes in an age, it's always cheaper & DRM free at Amazon.
-
MySQL's popular and bold "Unlimited" price plan gets extended to optionally include the Glassfish application server system as well. Smart move, in my view.
Tuesday June 24, 2008 Old News - OpenJDK Still United
I'm not sure what it is that's making ZDNet treat the interviews I gave last month in Australia as new news, but to be clear, the comments they are reporting and that Slashdot and DZone have been trying to spin as divisive are nothing of the sort (if this all passed you by, please ignore - I'm not in the mode to give any of the above any link love). I note Rich Sharples is also helping tidy up. The work the IcedTea folks did to make OpenJDK 6 capable of passing the TCK have been contributed back to the OpenJDK community and are being integrated.
People are working together just the way one would hope they would. My previous comments about JDK diversity hold. And my delight that we finally have a Free, compatible Java implementation based on shared, open source code is still making me smile, as the audience here in Zürich for Jazoon saw this morning.
Monday June 23, 2008 links for 2008-06-23
-
This Java applet makes very pretty tag clouds that I am sure we'll see showing up in promotional materials. Added bonus: they print very well indeed.
-
Summary of the event I spoke at last week in Utrecht. The venue was an adapted factory, maintained in a trendy state of suspended decay - I can imagine it making a great rave venue.
-
This is certainly deserving of exploration, but like all attempts (including my own) to define the confluence of "open source" and "business" it captures only a part of the spectrum - OpenJDK, for example, seems outside this model.
-
If you have been working on a submission, please remember that the deadline to enter is just a week away.
Sunday June 22, 2008 links for 2008-06-22
-
Just to be clear, this is exactly the same policy that the US has towards nationals of all other countries and the only reason it's not in the papers every day is we all realise that.
-
SomaFM has been a favourite for ages, mainly Groove Salad, but they have some new stations available. This one seems to track my usual playlist very closely.
-
Second new station from SomaFM, tracks my taste less accurately but will still be worth trying. We have digital audio throughout the house (using Airport Express) so everyone gets to play...
-
Third new station at SomaFM - I seem to have a lot of these artists in my library already so I suspect this one will be a hit, but they now have so many that's it's hard to choose.
-
Exactly how outrageous does this Shock-Doctrine abrogation of freedoms have to be before people stand up against it? Read John Murrell's analysis and weep. This is what David Davis is claiming to oppose in the UK. It's time.
-
So let me just check this again - United really doesn't want any business travellers, right? They are a miserable airline to use and they are getting less desirable by the day. And I'm a 1k flyer with them; watch that stop.
-
Just read those comments skewering the unspoken sophistry in the posting. The questions about unaccountable no-fly lists especially need an answer, and I have been through several airports lately where no ID is needed to enter.
Saturday June 21, 2008 links for 2008-06-21
-
If you're in the area please come along, I'd love to see you there.
-
My Sydney Opera House photo gets some coverage on a C|Net podcast.
-
Catch my keynote at Jazoon on Monday. I'll be exploring the adoption-led concept as well as celebrating the liberation of the Java platform.
Friday June 20, 2008 NoLinkMink
For all of you who dislike my daily link postings, here is an Atom feed you can subscribe to (and a web page you can view too) that gives you all the Mink without the Links.
Free, Compatible Java at last
Yesterday was a landmark that plenty of us have been working towards for nearly a decade. As MR and I have been indicating for a while now, the remaining obstacles to a fully compatible and Free implementation of Java SE have all been removed by efforts like renegotiating the terms for the source of Java 2D and various community members (Sun and others) re-implementing some of the other code.
But the proof is in the fruit of the process, and yesterday it was confirmed that the implementation of OpenJDK 6 that the Fedora community has packaged does indeed pass the TCK. This is a huge achievement for everyone who has been involved - the Fedora team that Rich mentions in that last link, the team that MR leads at Sun, the team that I lead, plus the many, many people who have worked for a Free Java for so many years.
Some may fear, as Fabrizio does, that this (and the many GNU/Linux, OpenSolaris and BSD packages that will follow) will lead to such a diverse set of Java implementations that "write once, run everywhere" is doomed. I don't agree.
What made Java so compatible, in my view, was the fact that almost all versions found in the wild were built with Sun's class libraries even if they used a different VM. With Sun opening the reference implementation and then the community taking it on and embracing it, we now have that same basic code-base at the root of Free implementations everywhere. And we now have the benefits of community diversity to ensure many eyes are making bugs shallow and that innovation is accelerated.
Free, compatible Java everywhere. That's exactly what we all wanted, and we have it at last.
links for 2008-06-20
-
My, how the Chinese have learned skills from the international arena. No self-consciousness at all about forming a cartel to conduct anti-trust actions, it seems.
-
The cuckoo strategy as a demonstrated dimension of humanity.
-
Not as rare as it may seem. My flight from Sydney to San Francisco was delayed becuase someone decided to have a swift smoke in the toilet during boarding. The rest of this woman's reaction seems calculated to get her arrested, though.
-
Truly excellent news; congratulations to both the Red Hat team Rich names and also the key figures from Sun and the rest of the community who were key to this success.
-
"ODF has clearly won," said Stuart McKee, ... Microsoft's national technology officer ... Thursday during a panel discussion at the Red Hat Summit in Boston.
-
If this does indeed turn out to become a series it will be awesome. As it is the introduction to tequila this gives is very good and well worth the read.
-
This looks like a mini-Lulu. If they can sort out local production in Europe they could be fantastically successful.
-
Very sad to see Erwin leaving the Sun family and moving on, but he remains a great friend and I wish him the very best in his new job.
