Peter Wooley’s Blog

It appears that MySQL is hiding its Enterprise source code. In the article, Kaj Arnö attempts to make clear that the Community Builds (aka free builds) will still be available in all their forms. But, the real key is that the Tarballs , the bundles of code that were easily accessible, of the Enterprise edition are being moved from public FTP to the enterprise server.

It seems odd. Arnö seems to state that it really isn’t a big deal, and that the code is still available through the BitKeeper service. But, the real question is: if it’s not that big of a deal, why do it? Obviously, there is money to be gained here. With the Enterprise-level source unavailable (or less so), MySQL, the company, seems to want everyone not paying to use the community source, as evident here, “The rationale is to underline the positioning goal of ‘Community Server for community users, Enterprise Server for paying users’.” Which, sounds more like the Free/Professional paradigm, where some feature are withheld to entice users to purchase the product.

I’d like to think that MySQL is not on a path to close its source, but when I ask, “why?”; I don’t full grasp what they’re trying to do. If they’re Tarballing the source and publishing it, it’s actually more work to hide it. And, even though they say “…it does conform to the GPL, something that we’ve verified with the FSF to eliminate any doubt…” I still think it subverts the spirit of Open Source.

Here’s a thought that has been rolling around in my head for a while: why not embed a piece of code into a known location of Web sites you’ve designed that can be called from JavaScript or a server-side scripting language for use in validating that links to that work will show your work, from places like your Portfolio.

As I’m finishing up my program at the Art Institute of Portland, I am often told to not link to live sites that I am not in control of, as the sites may have gone through another design revision, or not exist at all. This is wise, but much of the work I am involved with hinges on content that is generated by the client, which often is only available on the live server. Thankfully, for some of those projects, I’m hosting the site, so I have a little less to worry about, but what of the other sites?

The ChildSeek Network is one of those sites. For an overhaul of their look and feel, the team I was working on hooked into their existing Content Management System to fill out the content. As such, there is no “local” version I can use to show off the actual content. I can take all the screenshots I want, or show all the static pages I can manage, but it just isn’t the same. Enter: my idea about the embedded code.

If, on a project, you had the ability to create a small Web service or embed some metadata in a known location, you could have your Portfolio page (say, for ChildSeek Network) do a Web Service query of childseeknetwork.com/index.php, and if it returns the correct response or metadata, you can be fairly sure the active design on the site is yours, and you could then render a link to the live site without (much) fear. Or, if the data did not return correctly, you could just show screenshots and the viewer of your Portfolio would never know. As this seems fairly sensitive, you would want to be sure to alert the client to this procedure whilst discussing the contract.

As I’m working on my new Portfolio now, I plan on implementing the capabilities for this, but I’ll need to devise a specification for how it will all work. If I get anywhere, I’ll let you know.

Today was an odd day, all around. I had my C++ class at 8:00am, which included a midterm, which I did surprisingly well on and turning in a project which I did unsurprisingly poorly on.

Also included in the class was the introduction to the graphics library SDL. All in all, it took 1.5 terms of C++ schooling to finally getting into a graphics package, but I finally did. I spent most of today and tonight reading up and learning how to use it, as I have an assignment that I’d actually like to finish. Basically, I have all the freedom that working on the Web disallows: access to graphics hardware, fullscreen with resolution switching support, storage of image resources in a compiled file, all of it! Granted, I don’t have the glorious capabilities of applications over the Web, no compilation required. (I’m compiling on a Mac, but I could use Windows or Linux as well)

All of my effort has amounted to a blue gradient .png that follows your mouse in a 640×480 black window and closes when you press any key. Hardly impressive, but glorious in the fact that I’m actually utilizing C++ to make pictures appear on a screen. Progress is relative.

On another note, Kara and I took a 3.5 hour nap this afternoon, to the confusion of us both. I think our schedules this summer have been the most bizarre of our lives together. Hopefully, come graduation, we’ll stay awake on Friday afternoons. Then again, with all that free time, maybe we can nap on Friday afternoon and stay up all weekend. Just a thought.