ZDNet Must Read:
Google makes Chrome OS open source
Google made the early code available to the open source community and claims external developers will have the same access to the code as internal Google developers.... Continued »
Category: java
November 10th, 2009
Open source be not proud
Open source is, in part, a release of ego.
When a program is proprietary, it’s yours. You own it. You can feed it or you can kill it.
Not so with open source. When software is made open source it is with the knowledge that its fate is shared among all stakeholders. The contributions that make it valuable may well come from outside, the direction of the software is no longer completely in the hands of its owner or sponsor.
Larry Ellison doesn’t understand this, and I suspect neither does Wall Street. Otherwise, why would the Street be cheering on Ellison’s suggestion that he’ll kill Sun to keep Euro-hands off mySQL?
More than the future of mySQL is now on the line. So are the futures of Java and OpenOffice, and all the other projects Sun Microsystems sponsors. Ellison thinks this fact should make the EC Competition Commissioner, Nellie Kroess, back off. He seems to think the U.S. government can make Kroess relent.
The key to why Ellison is wrong can be found in the paragraph above. It’s one word. I’ll wait…
The word is sponsors.
Open source companies don’t own the code bases that are in their charge. They seek to monetize the code, so the code can be expanded, so it will draw more committers. Acquia doesn’t own Drupal, and Automattic doesn’t own Wordpress. The code bases are, in fact, owned by the community, simply by virtue of being open source.
Ellison seems to think that if he snaps his fingers and brings down the wrath of heaven, then mySQL and Java and OpenOffice will cease to exist. This would be true if they were closed source. In that case they would be orphaned, and if no buyer were found support would disappear.
Open source does not work that way.
Sure it would be tough for these big projects to find new sponsors. But there are plenty of prospects around.
Google would have an interest in Java, as might Microsoft. IBM already has a stake in Open Office. I’m certain we can find another home for mySQL, too. Even Glassfish might well find a new home within the federal government.
Ellison’s threat to kill Sun’s open source projects if he does not get his way is an empty one. Someone would pick up what remaining pieces have value.
Open source, divorced from its sponsor, turns to software water, and would quickly flow through Ellison’s hands.
Go to an open source conference. Listen carefully to the commercial open source businesspeople you see there. They may talk about their kids and their companies, their hobbies and their passions, including a passion for the projects they control.
But they know those projects are more like their kids than their sailboats. They are responsible for the software they control. They do not own it. It’s not “my” software. It’s “our” software.
This is the attitude you must take if you’re to make a success of an open source business. This is why many in the proprietary world, like Larry Ellison, confuse it with communism, or socialism, or some other foreign -ism.
Open source be not proud. Open source code responds to whomever gives it the love of time. The parents aren’t those who gave it the DNA of capital, but those who gave it the love of hard work.
November 6th, 2009
Why Google released Closure Tools
Javascript.
The release of Closure Tools by Google under an open source license is all about putting more muscle behind Javascript, whose underlying Java language is under a cloud due to the Oracle-Sun merger.
Web developers face a choice between using Javascript and the Microsoft AJAX Library, part of .Net, in developing Web applications. Google would rather you use tools it depends on, its AJAX Library, and its Web Toolkit.
As C}Net’s own Stephen Shankland notes today, Google has pushed Javascript to its limits in GMail and Google Docs, and developed its Chrome browser in part so Javascript could run faster. Google likes Javascript like Cookie Monster (above, from yesterday’s Google home page) likes cookies.
Anything Google can do to make Javascript more valuable to you is in its best interests, and the tools described on its blog today are pretty marvelous.
- Closure Compiler is a Javascript optimizer that packs code tighter than your best friend’s jeans.
- Closure Library is a Javascript library with low-level utilities and high-level widgets that work on a wide variety of browsers and can be called on as-needed.
- Closure Templates are implemented for both Javascript and Java, so they can be called from clients or servers.
It is indeed, as one wag put it, a Javascript candy store. It wants to be your favorite candy store. It wants to be your only candy store. No Pepsi, Coke.
September 22nd, 2009
Eurocrats killing open source softly, says Ellison
American billionaires, and even America’s government, seem powerless against the big bad bullies of the EC.
So Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is trying another tack. Approve my deal or open source gets it.
Ellison carefully noted that Sun, not Oracle, is losing $100 million each month the deal is not done, and that its cash bleed is accelerating. No, he won’t unload mySQL, he added, and mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be IT’ers.
It’s a subtle game. The EC is not good at subtle. It can take the Eurocrats a long time to decide what to do, and technology does not work that way.
Ellison’s words were a reminder.
So is the EC’s refusal to rubber-stamp the Oracle-Sun deal, pending more investigation, really going to hurt open source? Do the Eurocrats understand what open source is, and what it takes to make it go? Or, by pointing out the possible damage it’s doing to open source, has Oracle found the key to making the EC move?
August 6th, 2009
Code Red for XML open source
In a sign of things to come, Codenomicon has issued an alert against “multiple critical security issues in XML libraries,” which include libraries from Sun, Apache, Python and GNOME.
Codenomicon said it found the issues early this year while developing a product for XML testing, and has already been working with Finland’s CERT-FI on remediation.
Recommendations and patches are already going out. (I first found this cute little guy in 2004, while I was blogging for Corante. A now extinct firm called Irenecrafts was offering instructions on making them.)
Both ZDNet’s UK security team and our own Joe McKendrick have been putting out the word, but it’s also important to note where we are in terms of Bruce Schneier’s famous “window of exposure” chart, first published in the year 2000.
The announcement of a vulnerability is a virus’s second level of fame. You know, who’s virus, get me virus, get me something like virus, get me young virus, and who’s virus. An announcement alerts virus writers to a vulnerability, and exploits follow, meaning the risk to users immediately starts jumping.
The peak moment of risk comes when a vendor discloses a patch, but it does not start declining until after users install the patch.
All this means that we are now entering the key window of vulnerability to this problem, and that window closes only after all your XML libraries have been updated.
If you own any of the following libraries you need to be alert and ready to patch:
- Python libexpat
- Apache Xerces
- Sun JDK and JRE 6 Update 14 and earlier
- Sun JDK and JRE 5.0 Update 19 and earlier.
Not only will servers and PCs be vulnerable until patches are installed, but so will embedded systems and mobile devices.
Sun says it has patched JRE 6 Update 15 and JRE 5 Update 19 but warns it has no workaround for earlier versions, so this may be around a while. Xerces got out a patch in June and one is in process for Python.
May 20th, 2009
Can open source refuse to do business?
Let’s pretend I am an open source developer and I don’t like you.
I have control of some important open source project, so I write an addendum to the license forbidding you, or your institution, from using it.
Now not only are you not allowed to download my stuff, but you can’t update anything containing my stuff.
That’s what Bruno Lowagie of Ghent is doing. He is engaged in a legal dispute with Belgian authorities over taxes on his AdSense ads. So he is writing a “Belgian Restriction” into his next license, forbidding the government from using the next version of his program, iText.
If this were just one program there might be little problem. But iText, which is used to manipulate PDF, RTF, and HTML files in Java, is also embedded in a host of other open source products, including Eclipse BIRT, Jasper Reports, Red Hat JBoss Seam, and Windward Reports.
In theory, the next time some Belgian bureaucrat tries to upgrade one of these other products they will be in violation of Lowagie’s new license. Unless they want to settle the tax question.
So, on to the questions:
- Is this legal?
- Is this violating the spirit of open source?
- Am I really reading a story about Belgium?
Loading ...May 6th, 2009
Nagios fork warning to Oracle
A fork of the Nagios network monitoring tool called Icinga has officially launched, with the first stable version due October 28.
Matt Asay says this illustrates the health of the open source movement.
Nagios is a 10 year-old project and those involved with the fork say they include members of its community advisory board and makers of Nagios add-ons.
But there is meaning here for more than Nagios. There is great meaning here for Oracle.
As Oracle prepares to take possession of open source projects like OpenOffice, Java and mySQL, the Nagios fork is a warning that open source code can’t be suppressed.
Whatever Nagios’ managers did to cause the fork, it can’t be nearly as bad as the actions Oracle has been suspected of in its approach to open source competition.
Forks of these larger projects would doubtless move even more quickly, and gain more support from both developers and users, than Icinga, which is used by network managers and not the general user community.
The open source warning to Oracle is clear and was probably put best by Tina Turner, above. You better be good to me.
April 27th, 2009
The Oracle open source credibility gap
Paula says open source executives are suspicious, and the unscientific poll I did here confirms it.
Oracle has an open source crediblity gap.
(Harry Shearer and Michael McKean, right, with David Lander, were part of a radio comedy troupe dubbed The Credibility Gap early in their careers. It must be true, I read it on Wikipedia. They are now touring as Unwigged and Unplugged with Christopher Guest.)
Fact is that many in the open source movement distrust Oracle’s motives in buying Sun and taking over such blue-chip open source names as Java, mySQL, Open Solaris and OpenOffice.org.
The fear that Oracle will seek to destroy these projects is real. And as with the swine flu, fear has consequences.
Just as Mexico is being pummeled because people fear a bug that has (as of yet) killed no one in this country, so Oracle is hurt by its open source credibility gap.
When Oracle bought proprietary vendors like Seibel Systems it could easily make up the $5.8 billion cost on the backs of Seibel’s customers. Their code, and support for their code, disappeared into the Oracle maw and, since most were fairly scaled, they had no choice.
Oracle can’t do that with mySQL. Any attempt to change the license or kill it through non-support would be immediately followed by a community fork, which in turn would probably be followed by entrepreneurs grabbing former mySQL committers and selling support for the fork.
Things would be even tougher with OpenOffice. A good alternative, OpenOffice Symphony, is supported by IBM, which even has a viable business model for the office suite.
Java was proprietary until a few years ago, yet dozens of companies had versions of it. Making it open source was necessary to tear down that Tower of Babel. And Glassfish?
Point is, Oracle is already being hurt by this community distrust. Where CEO Larry Ellison can feel it, in the wallet.
So long as Oracle does not make its intentions clear, and so long as fear exists that it intends to do Sun’s open source projects harm, support for those projects is going to diminish. The assets are like ripening fruit.
Until Oracle makes clear that it intends to fully support Sun’s open source projects, and by extension the open source movement itself, the value of those assets will be degraded.
April 22nd, 2009
Are any open source projects too big to lose
The pending purchase of Sun by Oracle will leave the proprietary database king in clear charge of open source’s crown jewels.
These are among the most widely-used projects, and among those with the largest developer communities outside Linux itself.
There is skepticism about whether Oracle can manage these assets properly, worry that they might be treated as “cash cows,” even concerns license terms might be changed to suit the new parent.
Would the loss of any or all of these projects be “fatal” to the open source movement? As I have noted before, they can all be forked. But a fork would require the establishment of new organizations around each project, built from scratch, and the reconstruction of relations within each community.
This is not to say Sun has been a great parent. Critics have called it paternalistic, controlling, stingy with its financial or employee support. Critics have charged it has managed these projects for its own benefit, a software Mommie Dearest.
Were Oracle to do the same it would be business as usual.
But should Oracle be trusted? Oracle offers its own Linux distro, Sun’s OpenSolaris is fruit of the same tree as Linux. Oracle has made noises about treating these assets with care, and said it values them.
So what if it doesn’t? Would the loss, through forking or starvation, of these projects be a big, small, or medium-sized disaster for open source?
I’m just asking the questions. You need to come up with the answers.
April 20th, 2009
Oracle press release speaks truth
We in open source are so vain. We think every deal is about us. (So I like Carly Simon. Sue me.)
Snorkel is the clever name Miko Matsumura has given the proposed combination of Sun and Oracle.
Like Mark Shuttleworth and others in the open source business space he assumes this is all about us. It has to be about us. Who else can it be about?
On the surface this makes sense. Oracle now gains “control” of Java, of mySQL, and of OpenOffice, three of the biggest dogs in the open source universe.
For Brian Gentile of Jaspersoft, this sets up a “battle for the developer” among Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft.
To prevent developers from fleeing to those competitors, Oracle will need a different and more transparent, collaborative approach than it has ever mustered in the past. This audience will demand it.
My problem with this comes down to one word. Fork.
In open source, if you don’t like something, you fork it. You create your own version. You get together with friends and go for it.
Java was highly forked before Sun finally went open source with it, and such forks remain viable. IBM offers an open source alternative to OpenOffice that works well. And have you heard the good news about Ingres?
Even before this deal gets done, Oracle must know that many open source developers already have one foot out the door. Why would it pay anything to get in such a situation?
Solaris. Sometimes press releases tell the full, honest truth.
The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle’s largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris.
Sometimes, the hips don’t lie. (For those of you over 30 that’s a Shakira reference.)
Lots of developers work with Java, and will continue to work with a forked version. Same with mySQL. Solaris, maybe, not so much.
For Oracle, I continue to believe, this is a defensive play. The big dogs in server hardware are now H-P, IBM, Dell, Cisco and Oracle. Three of those companies have substantial assets in the software space.
That’s where the game is. Hardware and software combined into a solution, with one throat to choke. I may be wrong. Maybe Java and mySQL and OpenOffice offer Oracle unlimited opportunity. Maybe it’s all about us.
Or maybe Michael Dell is putting in a call to Mark Hurd….and John Chambers is wondering if he needs a dance partner.
April 20th, 2009
Why is Oracle picking up the Sun mess?
Since word got out that Oracle will buy Sun for $9.50 per share cash, 10 cents per share more than the IBM deal Sun walked away from, we have been asking one question.
Why?
Oracle insists this will improve its earnings right away, although Sun had been losing money, and that there are synergies between its enterprise software and Sun’s mission-critical hardware.
This seems absurd given that Sun reported a $209 million loss last quarter. But its gross margins on hardware remain high, so maybe if you blow out the company’s operating infrastructure quickly you can make the numbers work.
The deal also seems to bust a big hole in Oracle’s cash vault. So again, why?
Some theories:
- Oracle’s cash was doing poorly. It lost more from investing and financing last quarter than it gained in operations. Operations seem a better place to put cash.
- This is a defensive move. To quote the press release. “The Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database.” Want that in a rival’s hands?
- Oracle has experience cutting the bureaucratic heart out of its acquisitions quickly, yet retaining their book of business. Sun’s hardware customers can’t move that fast.
- Scott McNealy probably gave a good presentation about Sun Federal. There is big money to be made working for the government. He can still build that business under Ellison.
As to open source itself, I don’t think it was relevant to this deal.
I don’t think mySQL or Java are being given a high value in the deal’s paperwork. Although it will be fun for Oracle to meet all those companies that ditched it for the cheaper open source alternative, and some will shout “antitrust” as a result — in which case Oracle can just spin it out.
Why did Sun decline to dicker with Oracle while it fought for every penny with IBM? There is something to be said for the cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Armonk. McNealy and Ellison speak the same language, McNealy and IBM not so much.
One final thing. This deal needs to be finalized quickly. Today competitors can spin stories of Sun being rotten fruit and Oracle being money hungry. That will only die down once the combined sales forces can get into the field with a shared story, after the deal goes down.
Personally I think this is a bad fit and that Oracle will rue this day. But I don’t have any money riding on it.
April 14th, 2009
Simon Phipps amazed Google dancing around Java compatibility
At his personal blog Webmink, Sun’s chief open source officer, Simon Phipps, complained Sunday that Google is not supporting all Java classes in its App Engine. He even linked to Google’s list of supported classes.
The reaction was not all that he had hoped. (This is Phipps at FOSS India in 2007.)
Even on his own blog, some pushed back, saying Google was not changing the specs, just specifying which classes would be hosted on its App Engine. Others said his demands for open source purity were counterproductive.
Over at Slashdot, some commenters called Sun jealous of Google’s success, but others agreed with Phipps, saying Google “sandboxxed” Java and specifically questioning the lack of support for threads.
I have to wonder whether this is indeed a product of Sun’s weakness. Picking-and-choosing from within a standard library is most prevalent when the company which created that library is too weak to object in a meaningful way. Notice this complaint does not appear on Phipps’ Sun blog.
It’s no longer a question of whether Google’s actions weaken Sun. They seem to me to weaken Java. At the end of the day the code means more than its creator.
What say y’all?
April 8th, 2009
Yet another open source RIA tool
TIBCO has made its General Interface open source and it is now available for download.
This comes just weeks after Adobe brought its AIR tool to Linux, and less than two months after Ariba took its AribaWeb open source and Sun called its JavaFX the fastest growing RIA tool in the market.
How many such tools do we need?
Appcelerator, created in 2007 to commercialize its open source RIA tools, raised $4.1 million to bring its AIR competitor to market in December.
It’s true that, when Rich Internet Application technologies like AJAX first emerged, the tools for creating such files left something to be desired. What seems to have happened since is that many companies have created their own tools, and now want to gain some benefit from that.
But how many can? Is there such a thing as open source saturation?
Can you tell me some differences among these tools, and which may offer special benefits?
March 23rd, 2009
The magic word driving Microsoft open source strategy
Marketplace.
It’s a good word for hard times.
The implication is that, while open source may be cool and wonderful, aligning with Microsoft can make you some money.
As Max Bialystock said, “Money is honey.”
All this came out during the company’s MIX 09 event, at which the launch of IE 8 was supposed to be the headline.
Instead the new browser was lost in a larger code dump, as described by TechRepublic’s Justin James, while the real action was taking place at Microsoft’s Web App Gallery, an effort to marry Microsoft with commercial open source development.
Evidence is the inclusion of Acquia’s Drupal release in the Web Platform Installer of Microsoft IIS Web servers. Drupal is good software, Acquia is a good company, but Acquia Drupal is a .com, not a .org. commercial release, not a community edition.
NOTE: I misspoke in the original story, and it took two notes from friends to get this correction into my head. It’s the community edition at Acquia.com, the free software, that is being offered, not the commercial release. Microsoft chose the community edition of Acquia over the community version of Drupal. My apologies.
Or take the new Silverlight, which also premiered at Mix. Microsoft had a French member of the Eclipse Foundation do a community port to the Macintosh platform. Open source becomes a tool toward achieving universality and ubiquity.
The positioning is clever. Now will open source developers buy it?
March 19th, 2009
Schwartz: Sun is world's largest open source company
It’s not clear if IBM is thinking about buying Sun. But one thing is clear: Sun execs are out selling it as the “largest” open source company in the world.
In a series of blogs written this week, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz claimed that Sun’s open source business — software and related services — is now worth more than $1 billion.
“All in/all up, our software business is among the fastest growing businesses at Sun,” said Schwartz, who posted Sun’s latest financial summary with the blog. “We span network identity (built with the OpenDS community), application infrastructure (built with Glassfish and OpenESB), data management (built with MySQL, ZFS and Lustre), embedded software (such as Java, and the emerging JavaFX), alongside our core operating system and virtualization software (Solaris, OpenSolaris and VirtualBox),” Schwartz pointed out.
“These open source platforms generate, alongside the services attached to them, over a billion dollars a year, making Sun by far and away the world’s largest open source software company.”
Schwartz said there are more than 10,000,000 SQL users worldwide and insisted that Sun’s crown jewel — Java — generates profit, to the tune of $250 million this year.
Sun’s CEO also maintained that free software — including Microsoft’s Windows — is driving the free market.
“…. the Internet’s most valuable brands are all free - Amazon, Google, EBay, Skype, Yahoo!, Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Baidu, TenCent, etc. Those brands reach more and have greater affinity than just about any other consumer brands,” Schwartz wrote. “And in the technology marketplace, Linux, Java, MySQL, Firefox, Apache, Eclipse, NetBeans, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris, the same applies - free is a universal price, requires no currency translation, and reaches the longest tail of the market.
“Microsoft’s the only company I didn’t include in the above list - and although I consider them a stupendously great brand, they’re the only company that can really approximate free while making money on the distribution of their products. The fact is they’re bundled on almost every PC across the planet, and appear free to the users who use those PCs - they’ve amassed immense power with their distribution, and few users believe they’re paying for Windows when they buy a personal computer.
Thus, to developers (Sun’s target market) with Windows PC’s, Microsoft’s product are, in effect, already free … This is exactly why we freely distribute our key software assets all over the world - if we didn’t, users and developers might pick someone else’s free product (or simply use the one they assume to be free.”
February 20th, 2009
Hype and open source
Jonathan Schwartz made an online appearance last week, placed his foot into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
Based on downloads he claimed that Sun’s JavaFX is “the fastest growing RIA platform on the market.” (The Big Apple Circus is now playing at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. Through March 7. I will explain.)
Whoa there, sport, responded Dan Rayburn at his Streamingmedia blog.
Sun is new to the RIA market yet apparently, has already declared themselves the winner, even though no JavaFX based video apps are being used in any wide scale adoption. Not a single one.
Jonathan’s going all Roland Burris on us, he implied.
No. But he is selling something.
One of Dan’s readers quickly parsed Jonathan’s words for him. He was talking about the Java platform. It depends on what the meaning of is is.
That’s not how I read it. I see the Sun CEO conflating downloads of JavaFX with use of the platform. They are not the same thing. Not everyone who downloads Chrome makes it their first-choice browser. The same is true, in spades, with Rich Internet Application tools.
This relates to my earlier story on Facebook and Internet values. The behaviors we expect from vendors after we adopt their products are different from those we expect in the proprietary world.
So are those we expect before we adopt. The carnival barker has a tough time when we can see through the tent to the reality inside.
February 19th, 2009
Ariba sees goodwill in AribaWeb open source release
Ariba said today it is releasing its AribaWeb RIA development framework under Version 2.0 of the Apache license.
Ariba calls itself a “spend management” company, selling software that helps companies manage their expenses and supplier relationships. It developed AribaWeb over the years for its own use, and hopes taking it open source will improve the code.
CTO Bhaskar Himatsingka told ZDNet “we don’t have any plans to leverage it” as a profit center.
AribaWeb features AutoAJAX, which produces interfaces automatically, InstantApp technology so users don’t have to maintain their own interface code, Live Edit & X-Ray so developers can see how code works as it runs, and a full stack for developing business database applications.
The code is already available at AribaWeb.org
Himatsingka said it based development of its forge site on Google tools like Google Code and Google blogging tools. Google Subversion is being used for hosting.
“It’s not a one time drop but an ongoing process,” the CTO insisted, with promotion and support forums. But still, why do it?
Good citizenship is one reason. But there is a little more to it than that.
“As you get adopters you get contributors of new features and engineers who get excited about the technology. We might find some engineering stars who want to join Ariba, and that would be a benefit.”
February 17th, 2009
Can open source make Apple deal with Adobe?
Having failed to come to an agreement on licensing its Flash technology for the iPhone, Adobe has joined Apple rival Nokia in a $10 million fund aimed at forcing the issue.
Publicly, Adobe is saying its problems with Apple are all technical. But if the Open Screen Project, which is managing the fund, delivers on its promise, doesn’t that work become redundant?
Assuming the OSP meets its technical goals, Apple would then face a choice between accepting a standard every other phone maker accepts, and letting Adobe’s nose under the tent, or defying the rest of the market.
This is what negotiators call a power play, and what others might call a desperate gamble. Cupertino cannot be amused at what San Jose is doing here.
My question is how open source advocates should feel.
- On the one hand you have a project backed by multiple corporations aimed at providing a universal mobile video technology.
- On the other hand you have open source being used as a card in a game, one that might easily be ruffed or tossed if an agreement is reached over our heads.
I’m inclined toward optimism myself. Who cares why people offer you money, so long as they offer it. Would the work be abandoned if Apple let in Flash tomorrow? Doubtful, because Nokia and the other phone makers still need a bridge to the iPhone, and this is the best idea they have.
Those who have commented so far over at the boss’s shop seem inclined to diss Flash as a compute hog. That $10 million won’t be going to waste.
But what do you folks here at Open Source feel?
January 23rd, 2009
Where will Java coders go now?
Sun’s decision to dump 1,300 people was expected.
Less expected was where they came from.
Open source.
Included are people who worked on OpenJDK, desktop Java, the Java 2 Standard Edition (JavaSE) interface, and OpenSolaris.
The key question for open source is where these people will go. It’s tough to find a job anywhere right now but there are many important Java-based projects, like JBOSS and Spring Framework, that are doing well in the market.
In the end this may be an opportunity for Java projects outside Sun to get themselves some good committers and more control over Java’s direction.
Thus what sounds like a loss for open source could well turn out to be a win, making Java even more open and giving its governance more of the look-and-feel of Eclipse.
Regardless, it’s still important to note that none of these people are isolated from the code base just because they have lost a paycheck.
For technology in general that’s the biggest difference between this announcement and, say, Microsoft’s brain dump.
January 9th, 2009
Firefox team stops collecting data to ensure user privacy
The Firefox team decided this week to stop collecting unique identifiers that link crash reports from the same user.
During the somewhat heated debate during an extended session of its weekly meeting, opponents said the practice violates user privacy, while proponents say having the data visible could help them fix bugs and solve bottlenecks faster — even though they claim to have never used it before.
Opponents won the debate by arguing that user privacy trumps any development issue. After the meeting, engineering chief Mike Beltzner summed up the issue this way:
“The discussion at the end of the meeting was around what data we should and shouldn’t be collecting with crash reports, whether or not that data becomes publicly visible on our Crash Reporter developer website,” Beltzner wrote in response to questions submitted by ZDNet. “The questions in the discussion centered around the value in keeping unique identifiers that allow us to associate two crashes from the same user.
“While there is value in being able to do this easily, the potential cost to user privacy felt high, and so some were arguing that we shouldn’t have the crash reporter client on user’s machines send these unique identifiers,” he wrote. “That argument prevailed, and the change will be made such that unique identifiers will no longer be sent. We’ll also purge the database of the ones we’ve collected (but not actually even used) to date and instead find new ways of drawing the correlations required for data analysis which don’t have as high a risk to user privacy.”
January 8th, 2009
Firefox 3.1 beta 3 code freeze slated for Jan 13 -- maybe
The code freeze for the third beta of Firefox 3.1 is scheduled for next Tuesday but could slip if Javascript bugs are not resolved soon.
During the team’s weekly meeting, developer Rob Sayre flagged the Javascript engine blockers as a potential risk to the planned code freeze date of January 13th. He did not know exactly how long it will take to fix the remaining issues and is expected to provide a better estimate soon. Still, he said the existing blockers could push it back anywhere up to three weeks.
Contacted after the meeting, Mozilla engineering chief Mike Beltzner said there is no “declared” slip for the schedule of Firefox 3.1 beta 3 but acknowledged the concerns raised by the developer. “If that estimate puts the code freeze date at risk, we’ll make the appropriate announcements in the Mozilla developer planning newsgroups,” Beltzner told this ZDNet blogger.
Beta 3 is scheduled for release on January 26.
Beta 2 — with private browsing included — was delivered on December 8. The Mozilla team opted to go to a Beta 3 beta cycle rather than a release candidate last month to ensure that users had enough time to test this new feature.
According to Firefox team estimates, there are currently about 300,000 beta testers of Beta 2.
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for almost two decades. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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