Whatever happened to Xen? Oh, and the iPhone is dumb

If you've ever wondered like I did, here's you answer.

Since everyone's talking about the iPhone, I'll jump on that train for the moment with my opinion: it's a huge ripoff. Tons of other phones have many more features and cost half or less than the iPhone but don't have all the hype so aren't as popular. The deal killer for me is the glacially slow Internet connection - I've heard many sites taking a minute or two to load. Why would you pay $2000 over 2 years for that? I guess if you want to be "hip" then go ahead; seems pretty foolish to me.

Linux in da house

I finally got the Internet working in my apartment after a lot of fiddling; in the end I don't know exactly what I did to get it working, but the fact that it does work is all I care about for the moment.

The first thing I did was install the newest Ubuntu. Wooooooow. Installation was incredibly seamless and I am very happy with everything so far. I was living in the ancient days of Breezy Badger with no internet connection before (and Windows at work), so this is quite an adjustment for me. If you haven't used Linux on your PC before, I highly, HIGHLY, recommend Ubuntu, even if you don't know much about computers. I'll say it right now, and I'll say it again: Linux blows the pants off Windows any day of the week. The worst problem is that most businesses write their programs for Windows so there isn't nearly the selection of software in Linux. But for personal use, Linux can't be beat (I'd say OS X is comparable, maybe even better, but it's waaay overpriced so I'll still stick with Linux).

Of spreadsheets and thank you notes

Unless you happen to be a programmer, you may not have noticed, but spreadsheets are incredibly hard to code. Of all the implementations I have ever seen, I would say one, Microsoft Excel, actually works likes its supposed to (most of the time). Almost all the other ones are littered with focus and paint issues.

In other news, I received a thank you note for a wedding I attended about one year ago. I do believe that is the longest time I have ever experienced between a gift and a thank you note. Way to go Justin H. You are the man. The best part was the contents of the note, which was highlighted with this:

"Thank you for the concrete dish you gave us for our wedding. It is neat and we use it a lot." Touching words for anyone to hear.

Java grid computing

Here is one of the better discussions from some of the developers of GigaSpaces, Terracotta, and Coherence about the merits of these different products.

More on open source...

Ok, I've done some deep reflecting on the merit of open source in general and here my incredibly insightful conclusions that you should be impressed with:

Obviously a software project does not magically become "better" because of an open source license. But what underlying cause is there for the success of projects that I mentioned previously?

I’ll posit that it is the collaboration of businesses that allows for the creation of the "best" software in a given market (it doesn’t guarantee it, just allows for it). For example, Linux is one of the best operating systems because it has ample support from programmers at IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Oracle, etc. Think about many of the popular open source projects: OSGi, Spring, Apache... there are all sorts of companies that make use of these projects, and many that actively contribute resources to them. Some big businesses have the people and money available to develop their own software that would accomplish the same goals as these projects, but why do that when using an open source project will cost less to develop and work just as well or better than a completely in-house solution?

Is this the only possible source of open source success? Of course not, but it seems to be a significant and common cause of success.

Clarification

Apparently, Eric takes issue with my last post.

That last post wasn't really about my opinion of open source and quality, or if it was I didn't intend it to be, so I wasn't really thinking about my specific words as I wrote them and I won't try to defend them. Instead I will revise/clarify/completely-change-what-I-said: Open source can lead to higher quality software than proprietary competitor software in certain circumstances. That pretty much takes all the bite (and click bait) out of what I said and leaves us with a pretty much completely ambiguous, meaningless over-generalization to argue about. Oh well.

This is inherently not something that can be proved or disproved so there is no point in making the attempt. The best way to talk about it is in terms of examples, and the best example is (you knew it was coming): Linux vs Windows.
Some other very "high quality" software is Spring, Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, JBoss, and Subversion. Direct comparisons are often pointless since software is so often chosen based on specific requirements, but I think that many would agree that these examples are "better" than many proprietary counterparts. Better than all of them? Who can say? What does "better" even mean in the first place? "Better" can mean "cheaper" or "faster" or any number of things, but probably the best meaning in the business context (since open source doesn't have much success in the consumer market) would be "cost effective." And once we move to cost effectiveness, quality can start to matter a whole lot more or a whole lot less depending on the specific case and what the word "quality" means.

There's a lot more that could be said about this, but I don't care to do so now, so you'll just have to live with that lingering desperate longing you have for my amazing opinions.

Ahhh, naivety

Apparently not everyone is so excited about Sun's open source effort. Sun's CEO responds here. I am no software freedom fighter, but I do like open source in general for two simple reasons:

1) Curiosity. If I want to see how the code works, I can look at it.
2) Open source leads to higher quality software (in certain cases that I don't care to elaborate on at the moment, but Linux serves as a good example).

Sun is "going open source" because they want to make money, plain and simple; they are a company and they exist to make a profit. All this "we want to hold hands and work together" crap is BS; I have nothing against Sun, because capitalism works through competition and profit. However, anyone who thinks that Sun wants to work with the Linux community or any other open source community and have everyone contribute to a common cause out of the goodness of their hearts is completely naive. If I owned stock in Sun I would be wanting them to crush Linux into the ground unless there was money to be made by not doing so (I don't own any Sun stock, or any other stock for that matter).

This gives hope to all single Java programmers out there.

Ok, this is just plain sweet.

iTunes watermarks

For those of you who follow such things, you may have noticed that Apple is selling DRM-free songs on iTunes in response to the widespread hatred of DRM in general (widespread could be exaggeration, but I do certainly have a passionate hatred for it). It has come to be known that these new songs have a "watermark" that contains the buyer's username and email (or some similar identification, not sure on specifics) within the file itself so that a song file can easily identify the original purchaser. There has been some outcry over this watermark from some folks, but I think it really isn't that bad. Now I hate DRM more than most folks, but even I have to say that a watermark is 100 times better than the old DRM crap. If I buy a song on iTunes with this watermark, I can play it on any music player I own with no restrictions; I'm no longer paying for the right to play a song on one (or a very few) players, but the right to play a song on whatever the heck I want. The only possible downside (aside from the 30 cent extra cost on iTunes) is that I can't share my songs on bittorrent, and there really isn't ever a legitimate reason to do that in the first place. So I for one am much more happy with watermarks.

blaaaaaaaa

Allow me to express exactly how motivated I have been this week to do anything other than watch crappy TV movies: I have not been motivated this week to do anything other than watch crappy TV movies. It must have been that Memorial Day holiday; 6 months with no holidays and I was fine, but one three day weekend has killed my motivation.

Anyways, here's an interesting link since I don't feel like posting anything that requires much effort:

Some new ideas for the future of operating systems. Interesting, but I think it will be quite a while before any radical new designs such as this reach production on a significant scale.