Posts by neilrieck

30 years of MySQL, the database that changed the world

I could not take MySQL seriously until MySQL-5.5 (and there were a huge number of changes through every minor version number after 5.0). I never understood why SUN bought MySQL Corp with the intention to continuing giving away the software free of charge. I never believed Oracle's promise to continue to maintain MySQL during the acquisition of SUN, and they didn't. But that changed when MySQL was forked into MariaDB by the people who were first displaced by SUN. BTW, "My" and "Maria" are the names of Michael Widenius's daughters. I suspect that tech bros like Zuckerberg got rich by never being anchored down by hefty licencing and support agreements with the likes of Oracle, IBM and HP.

We know 'Linux is a cancer' but could CentOS chaos spell opportunity for Microsoft?

Migration Tool for CentOS-7

Not sure why some are lamenting the EOL of CentoOS-7. AlmaLinux offers a free tool called ELevate-leapp to migrate from CentOS-7 to five other distros, including AlmaLinux-8. I have used it more than a dozen times to migrate some large CentOS-7 systems, and it never failed once.

CentOS project changes focus, no more rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you'll have to flow with the Stream

invisible hand of the market?

I think I see "the invisible hand of the market" (er, "IBM suits").

On a more serious note, My employer uses RHEL for all customer-facing production platforms and CentOS for everything else (this includes everything from development, customer acceptance, employee hands-on training, etc). In fact, my employer was using CentOS as an on-ramp for driving projects onto RHEL platforms. It appears that IBM has thrown a monkey-wrench into those plans.

I have no idea what the future holds but history can be instructive. Recall that when Michael Widenius and others didn't like where SUN was taking MySQL, they created MariaDB (that decision seems fortuitous after Oracle acquired SUN; then promised the EU not to kill MySQL; then slowed MySQL bug fixes for more than a year until they noticed that "a lot" of people in the Linux community were preferentially installing MariaDB).

If CentOS just received a death sentence from IBM then perhaps Rocky Linux is the MariaDB equivalent.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. Hang on, the PDP 11/70 has dropped offline

Core memory in Canada

I remember my first experience with a PDP-11/70 at DEC's educational services facility in Kanata, Ontario, Canada. The year was 1982 and we were attending a one-week class on DT-07 and PCL-11 (two UNIBUS technologies). It was lectures in the morning and labs in the afternoon. We all had different machines and two of us from Bell Canada were assigned a PDP-11/70. Every lab began the same way: power up the machine then toggle in your diagnostic boot strap via the octal front panel switches. On the day of the last lab, the instructor, Gilles Marcel, remarked "I notice you guys toggling in your diagnostic program at the beginning of the lab". I responded with "Yes, that's right". Then he continued: "The PDP-11/70 you are using has core memory (read: magnetic core memory) so the diagnostic only needed to be input once". Well I was gobsmacked. He had watched us toggle in the diagnostic every morning but said nothing. We thought we were computer hot-shots up until that experience :-)

It's 2019, the year Blade Runner takes place: I can has flying cars?

grammar fubar in the title of this article

Has someone notified the publisher about the grammar fubar in the title?

What's up with "I can has flying cars?" (probably intended to type "can I have flying cars?")

Basic instinct: how we used to code

I started out with BASIC in 1977 on a borrowed "Heath Kit H8" (with H9 monitor) then purchased an Apple ][ (Integer BASIC, AppleSoft BASIC, 6502 Assembler, Pascal, FORTRAN 77). Today due to corporate rules, 90% of my efforts take place in "HP-BASIC for OpenVMS Alpha".

Vote now for the best sci-fi film never made

Need more choices

It's too bad you didn't have people vote for their favorite 5 (sort of like proportional representation)

WTF is... 4K x 2K?

Commercial vs Residential

I always "thought" that 2k and 4k equipment was only meant for commercial use. Lots of commercial media is shipped to digital cinemas every week (where Cinemas aren't doing digital downloads). Hollywood doesn't need to worry about someone ripping-off the next release of Star Wars because the commercial product won't play on anyone's TV or computer. At least not yet :-)

Oracle's Itanium gambit: A play for HP's checkbook

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

The enemy (IBM) of my enemy (Oracle) is my friend?

IIRC, IMB's DB2 runs on AIX and Linux.

AIX and Tru64 were both succesors to OSF/1 which IBM and DEC colaborated on. Although Tru64 is no more, I'm sure IBM would be willing to build some bridges back to DEC's customers. Hey, with UNIX portability features built into OpenVMS, it shouldn't be a big deal to port.

Oracle and Europe

Rememeber when the EU made all kinds of noise about Oracle possibly behaving badly after they acquired Sun? They blocked the deal until Oracle promised not to mess around with MySQL. I wonder what the EU is thinking now about Oracle's actions regarding HP and Itanimum.

Research In Motion drives away with QNX

QNX is a very cool OS

I first used QNX (Quick UNIX) ten years ago. It was installed on an industrial controller run by an Intel 486 (the chip before Pentium). Three people were telnet'd in with a simultaneous FTP running and no one seemed to notice the load. Rumor has it that RIM wants QNX for use in automobiles.

Buffy mastermind returns with new TV series

Fox won't leave it alone

Fox executives wouldn't stop messing around with Firefly. What makes anyone think they will keep their hands off this program?

Blu-ray outsells HD DVD 2:1 in US

HD-DVD is better than Blu-Ray

[ intro: CDs were developed first by Philips for release when their royalties on casette tape ran out. Sony was employed to help out with miniturization. Philips has been a company that always expected very low unit royalties. DVD was the logical extension to CD. ]

HD-DVD is the logical extension to DVD technology which was developed by an industry consortium. Sony joined this consortium, then sprung proprientary Blu-Ray onto it claiming "problem solved". Things like 10-base-T, USB, DD2, DD3, MPEG2, UNIX, LINUX, and many other technolgies are open and this is the way the world wants it.

DVD pressing machines can be easily modified to produce HD-DVD with a low-cost upgrade. This technology is so cool that it is now possible to produce combo discs (DVD on one side, HD-DVD on the other).

Blu-Ray pressing machines are high-cost brand new units. What's worse is that Blu-Ray discs are very fragile and are worthless once they're scratched (the info is stored close to one surface). Sony's solution to this problem is to bring back those disc caddies we all hate. I don't know how such fragile discs will ever be rented in retail outlets like BlockBuster.

So let's not get sucked into another proprietary technology.