niflheim

I was shown an item of interest to me this morning over at ye olde Xaprb’s blog:

Why MySQL might not benefit from having a mothership

The bit that caught my eye, shortly into the post itself, was:

The conversation went something like “I was talking to so-and-so, and he said, you know, you guys really need Sun/MySQL, because without the mother ship, things will fall apart and your own business will fail.”

While at the User Conference I had a conversation with a colleague o’ his on this very subject, causing me to wonder if the aforementioned “he” is in fact “me”.  Assuming so, that is not at all what I said, so I’ll try again.

My employer has nothing to do with anything I write here, etc.

Everyone Needs the MySQL Mothership

What I actually said was: I believe that a successful commercial enterprise called “MySQL” is necessary in order to create the types of opportunities that exist in the “MySQL Ecosystem” today.

I’m not biased because I’m responsible for running MySQL Support.  I’m “biased” because I was the DBA who made the business decisions to deploy products against MySQL for three different companies, placing not only our businesses but also our customers in the hands of MySQL.

Some of the reasons I made those decisions are no longer true of MySQL (currently, at any rate), but one of the primary reasons I selected MySQL over, say, PostgreSQL was because “MySQL” owned its product.

It was a commercial company producing an open source product.  It was not an open source project.  It was not a company with a South Park-esque business plan (”1. Monetize other people’s work  2. Who cares?   3. Profit”).

The database is not a web server, performing generally simple tasks.  The database is not the kernel, vital but invisible.  The database is not a commodity.

The database is my business and my customers’ business!

I can’t trust that to an open source project, because I need a commercial relationship.  I need accountability, responsibility, reliability.  I expect to be here tomorrow, and I need you to be there with me.

I can’t trust that to an IRC channel, a forum and a mailing list, populated by people who may not know what they are talking about, who may not care about my problems and who just may be elitist jerks preferring to insult me than to help me.

I can’t trust third party generalists.  No matter how much Linux distribution or “open source stack” vendors know about supporting their “thing”, they cannot properly support my database (”my business and my customers’ business”) because they simply cannot know it well enough.

I can’t completely trust third party specialists, however trustworthy they may be, even though I may choose to use their services.  It’s the “Tomorrow” question all over again, because specialists (by definition) don’t do everything.

If MySQL, the commercial company producing an open source product, had not existed then every one of those companies would have been forced to continue deploying against MSSQL and Oracle.

There are certainly businesses without such concerns, or who are unable or unwilling to make those particular business decisions (the .com bubble certainly did not teach anyone anything), but the particular needs I had are very much prevalent among companies actually willing to enter into business relationships with (”pay money to”) a particular vendor.

It’s rather like a developing star system (I’ll refrain from naming the star “Sun”).  If the star has sufficient mass, it will draw more things to it, perhaps at an accelerating pace.

Yes, most things will be drawn into orbit around the star itself.  We may even find that this power it wields is confining or restricting by its very nature.  But, if the star lacks sufficient mass to hold the system together, the entire thing will eventually fly apart.

In such a case the best result may be that some of the pieces form smaller, local systems and drift off to wherever, but those smaller systems will never possess the same “drawing power” as the larger system.

Or: Opportunities will always exist, but the number and nature of those opportunities depend heavily upon the “gravity of the star” organizing the system.

We all need a successful commercial venture named “MySQL” at the heart of the “MySQL solar system” in order to continue enjoying the same types of opportunities, to continue moving into new regions with ever-increasing momentum.

Some folks are happy, even happier, within the context of a “small, local system”.  I just hope that they remember to look beyond themselves and recognize that even if their own lives would be improved by destroying the star, there are millions more that would not.

Perhaps I ask too much.

I’ve been composing my thoughts on the great disappointment which was the final hour of Battlestar Galactica, and moments ago stumbled across a blog (I don’t read blogs) that expresses everything I feel so exquisitely it would seem almost like plagiarism to write my own comments.

So here we go: How They Screwed The Pooch On BSG

Every generic news site I’ve visited recently displayed this AS SEEN ON RACHELRAY weight loss ad (”FLAT STOMACH RULE: obey” or similar).  I’ve lost weight and thus know how to do it, so rather than thinking “Wow, this must be a hint!”, I just ignored it like a bright boy.

A few minutes ago, however, for the sheer perversity of it all, I clicked the ad and found myself at “Nicholle’s Weight Loss Blog”.  The very friendly welcome paragraph identified her as “Nicholle Stevenson from Clarksville, TN”.

Now, people from this podunk city have in fact appeared on national talk shows, but, naaaaaaaaah.

So I checked the web page from a datacenter in Texas, and she was “Nicholle Stevenson from Houston, TX”, and I checked the web page from a datacenter at work and she was “Nicholle Stevenson from Uppsala, 21″ (Sweden, she has your number!), and so forth and so on.

Disgusting.  Sadly, unsurprising.

I was tired of writing about Virtual Box 4 months ago, but it keeps coming up.

So, I moved the server on which I typically use VMWare to run my Linux and Solaris applications (and most of my MySQL databases).  Unfortunately, this moved me from a very fast/stable wired connection to a fast but less stable wireless connection via a USB NIC.

I failed to find any means of making the USB NIC visible to my VMWare instances.  It just won’t do it, no matter what I change/try/threaten.

So, on a whim, I booted Virtual Box.  Without changing a single thing, I have complete connectivity.

Go VirtualBox, go.

And thus I am left with basically no reason at all to continue using VMWare.  Which is good, because lately it has begun allocating gigabytes of RAM when I start a VM (for neither an apparent nor good reason), which is “somewhat annoying”.

Now that I’m fully converted, maybe I can finally stop writing about it!

I don’t like to write blog entries about MySQL.

I doubt that planetmysql.org includes me in our feed anymore, and generally that works out fine for all concerned.  My rantings while quitting smoking were probably at least “a minor contributing factor” in the filtering we now employ.

It’s not for lack of things to write (trust me), so, why the reticence?

I suppose mostly it’s that I don’t like to read blog entries about MySQL.  Every time I dive into Ye Olde Blogosphere I see us revising the 80/20 rule into more of a 90/10 rule, or maybe 95/5, or 97/3.  Or: 3% of everything is Scottish; the remaining 97% is crap.

But the real reason is drama and my fondness for avoiding same.

Being online lost its newness and novelty for me some 26 years ago, so perhaps that causes me to be less inclined to take my 15 nanoseconds of soapboxery seriously.  I am certainly less inclined to take that belonging to others very seriously.

MySQL was blasted for being a “toy database” because it lacked features.  It continued to be blasted about some of them long after their lack was rectified.  All along, an ever-increasing number of users and customers happily went about their lives and their businesses with it.

Now it’s en vogue to bash MySQL for making business decisions, or for producing software that contains bugs, or whatever.  And again: all along, an ever-increasing number of users and customers happily go about their lives and their businesses with it.

It’s so easy to lose any sense of perpective.

What’s the goal?  What’s the mission?  What’s the point?

I don’t define the answers to those questions, except perhaps for the Support team, but from my perspective the MySQL “mission” is about enabling data management:  Everyone has data; everyone needs to manage their data.  Data management has become a utility even more vital than electricity, and we’re there helping to make it happen all over the globe.

It matters much more to me that we still try to accomplish our mission than that the road sometimes gets a little rough.  Nothing is perfect, therefore imperfection does not surprise me.  Everyone makes mistakes, therefore blunders do not offend me.  Some things must be seen through to the end to assess their outcome, therefore experimentation does not worry me.  All questions are worth asking.

I care too much, I’m told, but really I only care about the one thing: the mission.

It helps keep everything else in perspective.

I have to thank Governor Palin for reminding me that I am a Libertarian.

Whew!  Almost voted Republican for the first time in my life, and would have if not for her.

As weird as it seems to think of Barr as in any way supportive of “liberty”, it is great to remember that it is possible to vote in a principled manner rather than feeling pressured to choose between the least dangerous of two very dangerous options.

Thank you, Governor!

So my Macbook Pro has been developing “issues”.  In the midst of some very important work, everything started to run slower until the system was effectively locked up.  Even with a reboot, one could not actually launch applications.

ssh worked, so I was able to copy everything I needed from the machine, but the laptop itself was, in short, hosed.  As it is absolutely vital to work, that posed certain difficulties.

So I drive the hour or so to the nearest Apple Store.  I need service.  They’re it.  What could possibly go wrong?

Glad you asked!  They refuse to talk to me, look at the laptop, or take the laptop from me for later service without an appointment.  I, of course, do not have an appointment.  They, of course, are fresh out of appointments and I will have to come back another day.

Wow.  Just…  Wow.

3 hours of my day gone because I didn’t have one of the precious 15 minute appointments with the Apple Genius who will certainly be unable to determine the problem and will take the laptop from me in order to ship it to someone who can.

If I needed any other reasons to stop using Apple products, and I most assuredly did not need additional reasons to stop using Apple products, this sealed the deal.

Folks at work suggested I call AppleCare directly.  They’ll send me a box/mailer and I won’t have to lose 3 hours of my day hearing about appointments I don’t have.  So, what the heck.  Sounds great to me.

Of course, the laptop is fully functional while I’m on the phone, the hardware tests report no failures while I’m on the phone, the tech won’t simply send me the mailer so they can examine the thing in person because he has to spend an hour with me on the phone…

…and in the middle of it all, he hangs up on me.

No doubt an accident, but I haven’t received a phone call or an email from anyone hoping to resume that conversation, nor will I receive one, and I surely am not going to call them and start the Tech Support for Macbook Pro script all over again.

Thanks Steve.  Real winner, here.  Glad I sold AAPL.

I set out to write about something completely different, but I ran across this article:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08266/914029-298.stm

Or to quote:

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.

Even more disconcerting are the willful delusions:

The district and union insist the policy still holds students accountable for performance.

I skipped the first… month… of Calculus I in college.  By the time I elected to arrive, half of the class had withdrawn because it was too difficult.  By the end of the semester, there were only 2 or 3 of us remaining.  I spoke with the professor at the end and complained that the class was too easy, that we hardly covered 1/4 of the available textbook, that in short I had learned almost nothing.

He directed me to a filing cabinet.  6′ tall, old and damaged and intimidating, many drawers, each of them literally stuffed to overflowing with papers.  This, he said, was the lesson plan and coursework he used 30 years previous.  We weren’t even making a dent in a single folder from that filing cabinet.

Why?  Because he had a quota of students to pass.  If he didn’t meet this quota, it meant he was a poor teacher (he was in fact excellent), it meant he taught at a poor school (eh), it meant students would not attend and grants would not be made and so on and so on and he watered it down and watered it down and it didn’t matter at all.

This “Post Gazette” story is the same stupidity driven by an entitlement culture born of that diseased misunderstanding that festers in the American psyche, that “All men are created equal” meant something contrary to the blatant facts of reality.

People “deserve” to pass.  People “deserve” to graduate.  Even if we have to reduce the standards to ensure that we don’t leave any lowest common denominators behind to do it.

Instead of improving education, or hell, instead of even recognizing that some people just aren’t very good at some things and nothing will change that, or any of a number of other things that could be done without ensuring the death of a nation

It’s not new, and that Calculus story is almost 20 years old (*sigh*), but the “50% Minimum” is so shockingly inconceivable I had to spout off about it.

I am tired of writing about Virtual Box, but they have given me an early birthday present.

Virtual Box 2.0 dropped today.  Now I have my 64 bit guests AND apparently the lockup under OS X was a VBox defect of some sort or other, because it does not occur under 2.0.

Now if only the Windows “AMD64″ installer (ie: for the 64 bit host) would execute I might actually be able to use this thing for something serious.  Either it dislikes Intel CPUs or dislikes 32 bit Vista; VMWare doesn’t care, and neither do I, so VBox loses again.

So I gave up and tried 32 bit guests, just for the sake of testing and comparing.

I finally managed to get VBox functional on OS X.  Installed Ubuntu and discovered that I can lock up the VM at will by “ls -lR /”.  This only happens under OS X and actually reinforces my suspicion that my Macbook Pro has a hardware problem.  But maybe VBox is buggy on that platform.  I switched to Windows as the host OS for reliability (…)

I decided to try OpenSolaris (for the first time) under VBox.  I have a long-standing hatred of Solaris’ installation procedure and “user experience”, and have to say that Sun/We/Gaia are going very much in the right direction with this.  Gnu userland utilities would probably cause me to switch to OpenSolaris on my *desktop*, never mind the server.

Ubuntu “server” seemed to have mostly similar performance between VMware Server and VirtualBox.  Ubuntu “desktop” was dramatically better under VirtualBox (and, to continue gushing, Gnome under OpenSolaris/VBox was also dramatically better than Unbuntu/Gnome/VMware).  For whatever reason, Ubuntu/Gnome/VMware is too slow for usability.

So, all in all a mostly positive experience.  I need to investigate whether my Macbook is fubar (very likely), and Sun/We/Gaia need to enable 64 bit guests.  As I’m doing rather important things in my VMs, I confess that I will continue to trust VMware more for at least the near future.

They definitely have some competition, however.  And that’s good for virtualization.