As developers we build systems using components that other people write. This is the rational way to write software: trying to get the best result using the fewest possible resources. That said, it really pays off in the long run to not only use the best available components but to plan and design for portability. The art of the wrapper. Seeing Jonathan Weiss's simply_stored wrapper for CouchDB and SimpleDB this morning reminded me how important this effort is. The trick is to spend an appropriate amount of time staying portable. In the last 12 years I have invested quite a lot of time and resources working on my own entity identification code (i.e., find people, product, place names in text, relationships between them, associating pronouns in text with names, etc.) Today, I almost always use Open Calais instead of my own code because it performs better, but, I do maintain and improve my code just so I maintain the flexibility of having my own NLP components. I like using the comm...

I saw today that the software for the Inoshi social networking web app was re-licensed from AGPL to MIT because the company decided stop trying to monetize this system. I have read the source code to many Rails applications (customer work and sometimes just to learn new techniques). Anyway, this source code base looks clean and well written and makes a good "read" if you are into studying other people's code.

The GPLv3 is likely to have stronger requirements for sharing back code used in web applications. While I personally think that this is fair, it will be "interesting" for companies using GPLed components in proprietary web applications. As a consultant, it is often frustrating when customers do not want to simply use a license like the GPL because they worry about protecting their intellectual property. I believe that in almost all cases, any proprietary code in a system should be associated with custom data handling. I am not a lawyer, but I believe that the GPL (even v3) allows GPL systems to share data with proprietary systems via a relational database (or some other type of persistent storage). Why bother dealing with the GPL, assuming that you don't buy into the social and philosophical ideas of the FSF.org ? Because it will end up saving you money! For example, using a GPLed content management system and donating improvements back to the project will save you money ...

When I do any database work in Java, I like to support both PostgreSQL and MySQL. The MySQL drivers since 2002 have a GPL license and are not suitable at all (for license reasons) for use in non-GPL projects when you need to distribute your application (but is fine for internal projects). Thus, for non-GPL projects, I use the older LGPL MySQL driver org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver to stay clean, license-wise. I do notice that just about all online tutorials that use MySQL with Java use the newer GPL licensed drivers, so I would imagine that many people end up using the GPLed driver in non-GPL projects. Being an open source enthusiast also means respecting license choices of copyright owners. The old LGPL driver does not support some things like bit values, but since the old driver is open source, I could always tweak the source code if need be. I am a little surprised that the Java community does not fork the old LGPL driver and maintain it.

I have blogged several times on how much I enjoy Apple's iTunes store, always burning any songs I buy to a CDR as MP3 as backup. I just did get burned by Apple's DRM however. This was partially carelessness on my part and partially some bad luck with hardware. You can only "authorize" 5 computers at once to work with your iTunes store account. I had a disk go bad on a Mac and had to re-install OS X without first unregistering the computer with the iTunes store. I had a similar experience recently with a Windows laptop: re-installed Windows without remembering to de-authorize that computer with the iTunes music store. Now I can't watch several Battle Star Galactica videos I purchased on my laptop. Oh well, no great loss. (Un)Trusted Computing is a bigger deal: if I buy a computer, I want control over: What software gets installed on my computer When I buy a license to run an operating system, like Windows, I want to be trusted as a customer, and not have my compute...

This is a good thing, to be sure! However, I have to wonder how this might affect Sun's revenue for Java in embedded devices, etc. Sun has a huge investment in Java and as a corporation they really do need to generate revenue from Java. One thing that I would like to see happen is tight JRE integration with Linux systems: a mechanism for running a shared JVM instance for small Java utilities and porting Apple's contributions for sharing more memory between JVM instances running on the same system.

I downloaded parts of Slackware over a 2400 baud modem connection in 1993 - my start using Linux. So, I noticed the announcement of Slackware 11 with some nostalgia. I very much appreciate the fine work of Patrick Volkerding. (Even if I am now an Ubuntu user :-) Software power: for me, Linux + other open source = Power I am not talking about client side Linux, rather being able to build services using Linux and quality infrastructure software from the Apache Foundation, the PostgreSQL group, etc. In the 'new economic era' of globalization and driving costs towards zero, Linux and open source play a huge role in staying competitive.

Slashdot linked an article about Eric Raymond's support for proprietary binary Linux drivers . I think that he is partially right, but I would like the freedom to choose whether to use binary only drivers on my Linux boxes. As a software developer, I look at commercial development tools as a way of life. While I find the free Ruby + Eclipse + RDT + Radrails combination to be just fine for Ruby development, for other work the commercial tools are just a cut above. I very much enjoy using Franz Lisp, but it is expensive: Franz has been in business for 20 years continually improving its one product (Franz Lisp), and it shows. I am using Franz right now for a large project - the licensing costs are a good investment for my customer. I hope to restart my knowledgebooks.com business next year (I have set it aside the last few years because the consulting market has been so hot) and I am going to try to justify to myself the costs of Franz because that is what I would like to use. Another...