Struggling to catch up after two days out of the office, but am making some limited progress. The weekend was solid, with the parents up visiting Friday through early yesterday morning, then a quick trip down to Boston to catch some of the fireworks from a friends brand new roofdeck-equipped place in Beacon Hill. Took The Downeaster down (site is PHP powered, interestingly, unlike the rest of Amtrak) and back and can’t say enough positive things about that train. I heart trains. Big time.
On the way down I had time to write up a Q&A on some news that should be breaking tomorrow sometime (yes, it’s way too long), and on the way back I listened to the first two parts of Stephe Walli‘s panel that featured MySQL’s Brian Aker, Sleepycat/Oracle’s Mike Olson, and Ximian/Novell’s Miguel de Icaza.
I may be biased because I know all of those folks with the exception of MySQL’s Aker, and I have a lot of respect for each of them, but I’d say that if you’re a.) interested in open source, b.) interested in software business models, or c.) interested in all of the above these sessions are a must listen. What you’ll hear is what I’ve received in every conversation I’ve had with de Icaza, Olson or Walli; deep open source experience and exposure tempered with a healthy dose of pragmatism. I don’t agree with all of the conclusions drawn, but I respect them. Outstanding listening, and kudos to all the folks involved – that was a hell of a panel. I’m considering burning the last part to a CD so I can listen to it on my drive home (iPod’s still not working with Windows).
Anyhow, I’ve been a little bogged down with some email migration stuff, some invoicing details, and other trivial but necessary tasks so I may or may not finish a post on operating systems that sitting around half done at the moment. If I don’t get to it today/tonight, it should follow the Q&A which will hit as soon as the news breaks.
