Month: May 2009

OpenBSD SMTPD

The OpenBSD hackers are writing their own SMTPD. Anyone that says “what an absolute waste of time” has:

1). Never run Sendmail.
2). Doesn’t care if their SMTPD is not GPL-compatible (Postfix ain’t).
3). Too much free time and not enough experience.

I’m psyched for this. I’d love to see an SMTPD that

1). Has configuration files that need not be treated as binaries.
2). Is resource-friendly.
3). Is sysadmin-friendly.
4). Is secure.

In my experience, the OpenBSD crowd is among the most likely subset of Free Software and open source hackers able and willing to deliver on this wishlist.

Make me happy, guys!

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel May Not Be An Oncoming Train

Today we at Monty Program Ab and our dear friends at Percona announced the Open Database Alliance. Click the name for the full press release.

If you are a MySQL hacker, user, documentation writer, or just an interested bystander, we’re ensuring the database software you have come to know and love, and with which you (quite rightly) feel a sense of shared ownership, stays Free and open. Not only are we going to keep the same development and participation model with which you are familiar, but we are going to open the project even wider. Got patches? We want them! Got questions, comments, or other issues? We want to hear them, and we will respond in meaningful ways! Got production deployments of MySQL? We will keep you up and running without labyrinthine licensing and high expense! We’re lowering the bar for participation and raising the bar for what a Free and open database can do.

And the point of the Alliance is that we’re not doing it alone. The MySQL ecosystem has a large number of stakeholders, and we want them all to consider the value in being part of a community of like-minded individuals and organizations. The Alliance is here to ensure that your transition to MariaDB is painless, and offers you a more robust and healthy world of code.

We’re just getting started with the Open Database Alliance. If you have built a business or beloved hobby on MySQL, I encourage you to contact us and join the Alliance. We’re here for you if you’re here with us.

Think positively. With the Oracle acquisition of Sun, doors may close. But we have just removed a wall from the side of the house. In Free and open source software, doors are for chumps. 🙂

Apizza In Albuquerque

If you’re from New York or New Haven, you know there are precious few places to find real Neapolitan style pizza in the US. Before you folks from Chicago get upset, let me say that Chicago-style pizza is a great pie, but it is not traditional pizza Napoletana.

I lived in New Haven for a number of years, which allows me to debate the merits of pizza (called “apizza” in New Haven) with New Yorkers without getting my nose broken. Conversely, if you’re from New Haven, you know that New Yorkers are the only other folks who can truly claim to have traditional pizzerias.

Think I’m exaggerating? Let Wikipedia tell you about New Haven style apizza and New York style. There is a friendly rivalry between the two, only interrupted to make sure outsiders sit down and shut up about what they consider “pizza.” It’s like two siblings fighting, but making sure no one messes with the family. 🙂

When Kristine and I left New Haven in 2000, apizza Napoletana was something we knew we were going to miss. And for the past nine years we sure have.

Last year we considered moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and we did just that, arriving last Friday. During a scouting mission in August of 2008 we discovered Giovanni’s Pizza. I’d be lying if I said it did not factor into our decision to move here.

If you live in Albuquerque, please realize how fortunate you are to have a pizzeria of this caliber in a city this size. During our six years in Portland, OR we found nothing that comes close. Same for our three year stay in Montreal. I’m not sure what Albuquerque did to deserve this, but I’m sure as heck not complaining!

Rosario and Dana Zito are your hosts (and excellent hosts they are). Their parents, Giovanni and Joanne, bring the authentic Italian kitchen experience to bear. The family are Brooklyn transplants. Their pizza is piping hot, the crust slightly carbonized, and the toppings are fresh. Mama Joanne’s cannoli taste like an angel cried into a pastry shell. The marinara should come with an IV drip.

New Havenites and New Yorkers, if someone from Albuquerque says they “know good pizza” ask them where they eat. If they say Giovanni’s, let them keep talking. They’re part of the family.

Damn, I missed good pie.

Call 1-800-THIS-IS-THE-21ST-CENTURY

The days of asking people to dial a phone number by associating letters in your nifty, branded phone number (I’m looking at you, Key Bank and Compass Bank) to digits on my telephone keypad are over. Why? I have a Blackberry Curve. Here’s my keypad:

curve-keyboard

My wife has the Blackberry Pearl. Here’s her keyboard:

pearl-keyboard

Uhhhhhh ….

Asking me to dial 1-800-KEY2YOU or 1-800-COMPASS without giving me the actual digits basically shows your entire marketing team thinks this is the 1950s, and all telephone handsets look and behave exactly alike.

In our home, we only have cell phones. The only POTS phones we own are packed in a box in the garage. I could look up an old-fashioned telephone keypad with a Google image search, but … seriously? And what if I’m in my car? Pull over and find a pay telephone so that I can figure out what number to dial? Ridiculous.

Wake up, suits!