People

Bowling alone with the web

Despite some not-so-obvious arguments ("Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for"), the transcript for a recent Clay Shirky speech reveals some highly intriguing thoughts. The basic gist is that society's collective crises of togetherness give way to more productive management of such crises. We learn how to cope with rising complexity, in short.

Shirky argues that gin was society's early response to the Industrial Revolution ("I can't deal with this, I'd better drink"), and that modern society's response to modernization (More people entering the workforce, etc.) is the sitcom ("I can't deal with this, I'd better watch TV"). I don't know that he's pinpointed the correct "outlet" on our frustrations, but it makes sense that it would take time for societies to effectively channel abundance.

Chris Anderson comments on Shirky's speech, suggesting that "it takes a generation or two to figure out how to properly use some resource that used to be scarce but is now abundant. In this case that resource is time...." Anderson believes we've found our way beyond the TV to "fill [our time] more productively, and to greater satisfaction."

I'm not so sure. In fact, I think the opposite is happening, at least in my life. I've already commented once on my addiction to the web. Unfortunately, my kids are learning the same addictions from me and from my wife.… Read more

MySQL's Monty Widenius leaves Sun

Valleywag is reporting that Michael ("Monty") Widenius, primary author of the original MySQL database and one of the company's founders, turned in his resignation to Sun yesterday. For those inside the MySQL team at Sun, this will likely prove bittersweet.

Bitter, because Monty has been such an important architect to the MySQL database's technical success. Sweet, because Monty sometimes took public positions against MySQL AB, the company that has been attempting to profit from the database.

Monty was involved in Drizzle, the MySQL fork that need not have been (and, in my opinion, should not have … Read more

Community gets corporate in a new ZDNet blog

I was really pleased to see Joe Brockmeier get new digs over on ZDNet, and even happier to see that he's writing a blog focused on community. People talk ad nauseum about "community" these days, but few recognize the science (and back-breaking labor) that goes into it.

Enter the Zonker.

His first real post focuses on where community managers should reside within a company:

The idea that a community manager should be in support, though... I guess that really depends on the company. In my experience, the support group would almost certainly be the wrong group to … Read more

Playing backup to Red Hat

Dave Rosenberg thought that this press release was a spoof on my affection for Red Hat. Yes, it's true that I'm a fan of Red Hat's - I think it does a lot of good for open source - but this goes too far.... :-)

I really resent that I have to play backup.

For those end-of-quarter, highly stressful days...

This week has been highly stressful. Actually, every end of quarter has been stressful. My company has yet to miss a quarter in eight straight quarters, but that doesn't mean it's always a pleasant experience, whatever I might say to the contrary.

I had just finished a call with a particularly difficult customer, and needed to get my negative energy out. So Bryce Roberts and I headed up to bike Dry Creek, finishing up on The Bobsled (Watch out - it will make you dizzy), one of the best rides anywhere.

I feel better. Actually, halfway through the … Read more

Palm's Treo Pro finds a ever decreasing potential market

It's only when I talk with Zack Urlocker or Red Hat employees that I'm reminded that Palm is still in business. They seem to be the only ones still lugging around Palm Treos.

In Red Hat's case, it's because the Palm Treo works fairly well with Linux. As for Zack...? No clue, except that Zack isn't one to spend money on disposable liabilities.

With Red Hat's roughly 2,200 employees, plus Zack, Palm has a total addressable market of 2,201 people with its new Treo Pro.

Unfortunately, Palm has yet to find a … Read more

Q&A: Red Hat's JBoss business hits overdrive

It has been a little over two years since Red Hat acquired JBoss. Despite a relaxed public spin, rumors at the time, and for long afterwards, persisted that Red Hat didn't understand middleware, had botched the integration of the JBoss employees and culture into Red Hat, and worse.

However, in an interview Wednesday with Craig Muzilla, vice president of the Red Hat middleware business line, it became clear that JBoss--which includes all of Red Hat's middleware product line, including MetaMatrix--has finally come into its own at Red Hat. I had been hearing from different corners of Red Hat, … Read more

Executive moves: Ashlee Vance ditches The Register for the New York Times

In a sign of a snarkier times to come for the New York Times, The Register's Ashlee Vance has announced that he'll be joining the Times, effective September 2. Ashlee is, of course, my cohort (along with MuleSource's Dave Rosenberg) on the Open Season podcast, which may wither at the Times. Methinks it's not into open-source podcasts....

As he noted in an email:

I'm leaving The Register after more than five glorious years at the publication and heading to The New York Times. I'll be covering enterprise/business computing stuff, so much the same … Read more

The long, hard road to becoming a significant Linux contributor

For those outside the open-source world, it often comes as a surprise to find out that it's extraordinarily difficult to become a significant contributor to the Linux kernel or other open-source projects. The reason? Unlike a company where all you need is an employee badge to start contributing to its code, in serious open-source projects you need to demonstrate years of competent coding to even get an invitation to the party.

Linux Torvalds, founder of Linux, walks through the process in a recent interview:

It's definitely not easy to become a 'big contributor.' For one thing, the kernel is quite complex and big, and it inevitably simply takes time to learn all the rules -- not just for the code, but for how the whole development environment works. Similarly, for a new developer, it will take time before people start recognizing the name and start trusting the developer to do the right things....

The worst thing anybody can do is to study the kernel alone and try to learn things in private, and then, however many months later, present all the established kernel developers with a big patch that just comes out of the blue. That's just going to be frustrating for everybody.

And just in case would-be contributors were hoping for an warm, encouraging environment....… Read more