Thursday, September 11. 2008
 While Colin beat me in blogging about Project Kenai, I think I can still provide some additional background information about this new project hosting service from Sun.
If you are a maintainer of an Open Source project, you currently have plenty of choice when it comes to getting your project hosted for free. One criterion could be your software configuration management system (SCM) of choice.
Some of the hosting services that I am currently aware of and the choice of SCM they offer include:
As disclosed by Tim Bray some days ago, there now is another option - Kenai is open for project hosting (currently by invitation only)! In his blog post, he interviews Nick Sieger, one of the developers behind this project about their motivation and intentions:
We need to demonstrate credibility in building on top of more traditional LAMP/SAMP web stacks (not just Java EE); and we need to show viability of Sun technologies and hardware for next-generation web applications.
In a nutshell, Kenai is a platform for:
- Developer collaboration
- Communities of connected developers
- Integrated collaboration services stack
Some of the features that are currently available include:
- SCM services using Subversion and Mercurial
- Bug Tracking (Bugzilla)
- Forums
- Wikis
- Mailing Lists (using Sympa)
Reading the interview with Nick and looking at some presentations slides for RailsConf from Fernando Castano (a jRuby and Database performance engineer at Sun and another member of the project team), I was able to gather a list of the tools and technologies they used to build Kenai:
I found it interesting that they decided to deploy and run the Rails application as a war file within the Glassfish application server (using Warbler). By the way, the fabolous OpenSUSE Build Service is a Rails application, too! So far, the entire site is powered by a single MySQL instance with query cache enabled.
The project is hosted on the following infrastructure:
You should check out Fernando's presentation for more technical details, tuning info and how they benchmarked the setup - it contains a number of useful tuning hints and performance graphs.
Last time I checked, 27 Projects have joined so far (e.g. jRuby, xVM Server). Kenai itself is developed on Kenai. It's going to be interesting what other projects will find their home there.
Nick also talked a bit about their future near term plans: to improve the usability and feature set, incrementally improve the site navigation and layout and adding support for hosting files/release downloads. They also consider offering Jira as an option to Bugzilla for bug tracking and Git as another SCM option.
There is an IRC channel #projectkenai on freenode.net, to get in touch with the developers directly. The mailing list for the Project Kenai site itself, is users@help.kenai.com - you can subscribe to this list here.
Monday, September 1. 2008
I'm back home from DrupalCon 2008 now - it has been a great event! I met a lot of nice people from the Drupal Community and learned a lot about this CMS. I've been very busy in uploading the remaining pictures from the event to my gallery - so here's for your viewing pleasure:
I also gave two talks and held a BoF there - the slides have now been attached to the session nodes, one of them (the HA session) even includes a video recording:
I've also uploaded some pictures from FrOSCon to my Gallery now, hope you enjoy them! The slides of my FrOSCon talks are now uploaded to the conference system as well:
Tuesday, August 5. 2008
 I just got informed that two of my session proposals for DrupalCon 2008 got accepted - I will be speaking about the following topics there:
The second talk will be held in cooperation with Jakub Suchy, who will take over the practical demo. Sun Microsystems is a Gold Sponsor of the event and I am glad that we can show some support for this truly amazing and vibrant community CMS. DrupalCon 2008 will take place from August, 27th-30th in Szeged, Hungary. The list of proposed talks looks truly impressive! Among the key note speakers will be Dries Buytaert and Rasmus Lerdorf. I look very much forward to this conference. If you have a chance, make sure to attend it!
Monday, June 23. 2008
While we're on the topic of Bazaar - this week I got informed by the organizers of the FrOSCon 2008 conference that they accepted two of my talk proposals: one session will be an introduction to this source code management system (what a coincidence), the other one will be an introduction to OpenSolaris for Linux users, explaining some of the underlying technologies and how they differ from what a seasoned Linux user may be accustomed to.
And no, I have not given up on using Linux - quite the contrary! I have been very impressed by the latest OpenSUSE 11.0 release and already run it for since quite some time on several of my work systems. In fact, I already convinced several colleagues of mine to give it a try as well! I am amazed by the speed and "out of the box experience" of this version and I actually plan to install it on my Genesi Pegasos PowerPC machine as well, replacing Debian on there. But as a Sun employee, I of course have to familiarize myself with the other products and projects that we're involved in. And on the Server side, Solaris does have a few interesting features that Linux currently lacks. But I digress.
I look forward to speaking at FrOSCon again - it has been a great conference in the past two years. Very well organized, nice venue, a relaxed atmosphere and excellent technical sessions and speakers.
Other MySQLers submitted talks as well - for example, Giuseppe will give a presentation titled "MySQL Community How To", Susanne will give a PostgreSQL tutorial and others will participate in the separate PHP subconference. Don't miss it - this year's FrOSCon will take place on August 23rd&24th in St. Augustin, Germany (close to Bonn). For the first time, we will also try to set up a MySQL project table. So if you are there, make sure to stop by and have a chat with us!
Wednesday, June 18. 2008
If you happen to be in Munich, Germany next week, don't miss out the final Sun/MySQL launch event which will take place on Thursday, 26th of June at the "Sofitel Munich Bayerpost", Bayerstraße 12, D-80335 München.
Simon Phipps will speak about "Sun and Open Source - How it has changed the industry", Kaj Arnö will give a talk about the positioning, strategy and momentum of MySQL as a part of Sun. Other speakers include Donatus Schmidt (Marketing Director Sun Germany) and Ralf Gebhardt (Sales Engineer, MySQL). You can see the entire agenda here, you need to register here if you would like to attend.
Monday, May 26. 2008
From May 28th-31st, the annual LinuxTag will take place in Berlin, Germany. I followed the growth and evolution of LinuxTag from the very early days and I have fond memories of the event back when it still took place at the University of Kaiserslautern and our SuSE "booth" was just a regular table taken from the lecture rooms...
Things have evolved a lot since then. Today, LinuxTag is one of the largest Linux/Open Source Events in Europe and my new employer Sun is a major sponsor this year. In addition to several talks and keynotes, there will be a large Sun booth in the exhibition area (Booth #205) and we will have a dedicated MySQL demo pod! Some of the things we plan to demo there are the upcoming MySQL Server releases (5.1, 6.0 with Falcon and Online Backup), MySQL Workbench, MySQL Enterprise Monitor as well as how to combine these with other Sun products like Glassfish, NetBeans, OpenSolaris or OpenOffice.
Some other stuff that we will be showcasing on the Sun booth:
- Be Brilliant Faster with OpenSolaris: Develop, Debug, Deploy Apps Faster with ZFS and Dtrace, OpenSolaris Live CD – Fast, Free, and Easy to Install
- Virtualize Your Business with xVM and VirtualBox: OpenSolaris, Windows, Linux & Mac OS X Virtualized, Develop on VirtualBox, Deploy on xVM, Free & Open
- Sun Studio Software for OpenSolaris and Linux: C/C++/Fortran Compilers and Tools, x86 and SPARC
- Cool New Features in OpenOffice.org 3.0: Importing PDFs and Managing Appointments, now with full support for MAC OS X (Aqua)
- Discovering Open High Availability Cluster: Overview about HA Clusters, Community Group Projects, Single Node Cluster – Service Failover between Zones
- GlassFish - the Open Source Java EE 5 Application Server: JRuby/ Rails, Ajax & Comet
I look forward to being there! Please contact me, if you are interested in visiting Linuxtag and would like to receive a free pass!
Friday, April 25. 2008
While being subscribed to the full blogs.sun.com feed certainly feels like drinking water from a firehose, every once in a while I stumble over very well-written and useful articles about MySQL. Below is a collection of helpful posts, especially if you run MySQL on Solaris (surprise!). And while I still am an avid Linux user, I must admit that Solaris has a few neat features - particularly DTrace and ZFS are quite intriguing. If only userland would not feel so weird for someone coming from a GNU/Linux background!
From Jenny Chen's blog:
From Ritu Kamboj's blog:
From Krish Shankar's Blog:
More to come in the near future!
Monday, April 14. 2008
I made it to the US safely, even though I almost missed my connecting flight in Heathrow (even my luggage made it, hooray!). I reached the Hotel just in time to directly head off to the traditional pre-conference party at Mårten's house. However, we just stayed there shortly (barely long enough to say hi to everybody) and then headed to the MySQL pre-conference dinner (organized by Arjen). It was nice meeting such a large number of the key MySQL community people in one place! I was especially surprised about the presence of Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green - this added a nice touch!
Today I am attending Stewart's tutorial session about MySQL Cluster. So far it has been quite entertaining and informative! We'll continue with hands-on excercises on setting up a cluster configuration on the attendees' laptops after the lunch break.
I have uploaded pictures from yesterday and this morning to my foto set on flickr (which I will also post to the MySQL Conference 08 Flickr group) and will try to continue doing so for the rest of the conference. Enjoy!
Friday, April 4. 2008
 I recently was interviewed by Packt Publishing for their Impackt '08 web pages:
Ever since the formal adoption of the term in 1998, Open Source has experienced growth and adoption rates that defy pressures and suggestions that it’s a viable option for enthusiasts and geeks only. Governments, corporations as well as small businesses have begun to choose Open Source over proprietary software. However, with the global economy facing an uncertain future, how will open source be impacted? Can it continue to grow despite this?
With these questions in mind and more, Packt approached some people at the heart of this movement to understand their take on the future of open source.
The interview has now been published. Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 2. 2008
A gentle reminder: next week, there will be two more stops of the MySQL Meetup Mashup Tour:
- Monday, April 7th, 19:00: Hamburg, Germany. We will meet in the meeting rooms of the local Sun Microsystems offices ( Nagelsweg 55, 22097 Hamburg). There will be two technical sessions: Giuseppe will talk about the MySQL Sandbox, Kay Koll will give a presentation about how to combine MySQL with OpenOffice.org. He will also describe the new report generator and give an overview over the future of OpenOffice. You can register for this event via meetup.com or Xing.com.
- Tuesday, April 8th, 17:00: Berlin, Germany. This event will take place in the rooms of the Berlin offices of Sun Microsystems (Komturstrasse 18a, 12099 Berlin). This time, Giuseppe will talk about MySQL as an open platform, Kristian Köhntopp will share a few hints he gathered while doing consulting work at customer sites. Please use Xing.com to register for this event.
At both events, colleagues from Sun and MySQL will be present to answer questions and discuss the acquisition of MySQL by Sun and all things Open Source. There will be free drinks and food as well!
We look forward to welcome users from the various related Sun products/projects, e.g. OpenOffice, Java, OpenSolaris, Glassfish or Netbeans. There is so much opportunity for collaboration and exchange of experience - I am very excited to be at both meetings to meet and talk with people from these communities. See you there!
Tuesday, March 25. 2008
While visiting the CeBit Trade Show in Hannover on 2008-03-06, Kaj and myself stopped by the booth of our new employer for meetings with some of our new colleagues. During our stay, they performed a short video interview with us (in German), to get our take on the MySQL acquisition and what this means to us and our users - it is now available from the Sun@CeBit2008 pages. Enjoy!
Wednesday, March 12. 2008
As Kaj already pointed out, the Sun/MySQL Meetup Mashup Tour will also make a stop in Munich, Germany this Friday. I will be there as well, we will meet at 14:00 at the Hilton Munich Park Hotel. Kaj and some other Sun people will join us a bit later. If you are in the area, make sure to stop by!
By the way, the Meetup Mashup Tour will make at least one more stop in Germany - I am organizing an event in Hamburg, Germany which will take place on Monday, April 7th (19:00). This was initially planned as another regular MySQL Meetup, but I offered to expand the scope a bit. We will now meet at the Sun offices, Sun will sponsor some food and drinks! In addition to the usual MySQL Meetup crowd, we expect participation from various Sun communities (e.g. OpenOffice/StarOffice, Java or OpenSolaris). As usual, there will be a MySQL tech talk (this time held by Giuseppe).
I look forward to this event - it will be exciting to mingle with the people from these other communities and to exchange experiences and make new contacts. If you live somewhere around the Hambur area and would like to participate, please RSVP via Meetup.com or Xing.com soon!
Tuesday, March 4. 2008
I have not been at CeBit for quite a while, but this year I will be there as a regular visitor this Thursday (6th of March). If you would like to meet with me, please send me an email or ping me via IM/Skype! I look forward to walking around the hallways, visiting my new employer's booth and finding out what other Open Source presences and activities there will be.
Friday, February 29. 2008
FedEx rang on my door today, delivering a large cardboard box. The Sender? Sun Microsystems, my new employer!
Upon opening it, I discovered the following:
Continue reading "A nice welcome package from Sun arrived today"
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