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What’s Going On With Red Hat Desktop Systems? An Update

Red Hat is well known as a supplier of server systems, so the latest developments with our desktop products and technologies sometimes find themselves in the shade. It’s time for an update on the current state of the desktop at Red Hat.
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The iPhone SDK and free software: not a match

Apple's recently released a software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone, but if you were hoping to port or develop original open source software with it, the news isn't good. Code signing and nondisclosure conditions make free software a no-go.
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Just announced: MySQL to launch new features only in MySQL Enterprise

MySQL will start offering some features (specifically ones related to online backups) only in MySQL Enterprise. This represents a substantive change to their development model — previously they have been developing features in both MySQL Community and MySQL Enterprise. However, with a shift to offering some features only in MySQL Enterprise, this means a shift to development of those features occurring (and thus code being tested) only in MySQL Enterprise.
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Exclusive: Google App Engine ported to Amazon's EC2

One of the biggest criticisms of Google's App Engine have been cries of lock-in, that the applications developed for the platform won't be portable to any other service. This morning, Chris Anderson, the Portland-based cofounder of the Grabb.it MP3 blog service, just released AppDrop — an elegant hack proving that's not true.
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Sun Tackles Video Codec

Looking to boost the Web, Sun is working on a royalty-free and open video codec and media system, company officials said Thursday afternoon.
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Harvard starts teaching open source

It's about time that United States elite academic institutions finally got around to not only using open-source software, but also teaching it. In the April 2008 edition of Harvard Business Review, Harvard gives its MBA students a taste of the decision facing every company that leverages technology as part of its business (namely, everyone):

Should I embrace or fight open source?
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Google shares its security secrets

Google is offering security professionals a look into its security systems..
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Microsoft gets a new open-source chief

Sam Ramji just got a promotion: Sam will now be running Microsoft's worldwide open-source and Linux team (roughly 120 people and counting).
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Google gives Web developers a leg up with App Engine

Looks to make it easier for more people to get started developing, and to scale their apps.
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Red Hat Asks Federal Court To Limit Patents On Software

Today, Red Hat took a public stand challenging the standards for patenting software
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Just announced: MySQL to launch new features only in MySQL Enterprise

Just announced at the MySQL Partner meeting as part of the MySQL Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, CA:

MySQL will start offering some features (specifically ones related to online backups) only in MySQL Enterprise. This represents a substantive change to their development model — previously they have been developing features in both MySQL Community and MySQL Enterprise. However, with a shift to offering some features only in MySQL Enterprise, this means a shift to development of those features occurring (and thus code being tested) only in MySQL Enterprise.

As I’ve discussed before, the size of the user base for MySQL Enterprise is much smaller than for MySQL Community. That means these critical features will be tested by only a few of their customers. So, in effect, they will be giving their paying customers real, true, untested code. How is this supposed to work? In addition, this means that they are changing their internal development model, splitting the relationship between the two trees, and overall going even further down the path of getting the RHEL/Fedora model backwards.

What do you think about this? Leave a comment, I’m really curious as to everyone’s feeling on this.

UPDATE: Marten Mickos has just acknowledge that I understood the slide quite correctly, and they will indeed develop new features in MySQL Enterprise (in 6.0), without making them available in MySQL Community. Hmm!