As linked to all over the web, Kaj Arnö has posted a blog post explaining that the Enterprise-only backup extensions that I previously covered on this blog are now to also be available in MySQL Community. This essentailly means that the encryption and compression backup extensions be available to the open source world.
Webkit GTK (and QT) get plugin support
Another gem from planet gnome. WebKit GTK and QT are finally getting pluggin support (follow the link for screenshot bling). WebKit is fast becoming the little browser engine that could. I’m looking forward to seeing the GTK and QT pushes bring on an age that gets us native Win32 WebKit. I can think of tonnes of projects where I needed a light weight, easy to embed browser engine and instead resort to IE shell hacks.
Tags: browsers, open source, software
Open source use of flash spec is now ok
According to this blog from planet gnome, open source projects are now able to use the flash spec to create their own SWF and FLV decoders. This is good news both for the open source projects that try to bring flash to linux and its ilk and for Adobe since there is no better way to put a spec to test than to have multiple implementations against it.
Tags: flash, open source, software
MySQL Enterprise to get exclusive features
So not quite as dramatic as slashdot put it, but annoying none the less. Sun has decided to add some new features to MySQL Enterprise only. Jeremy gives a very concise explanation of why this is a bad thing both for the MySQL Community and MySQL Enterprise users.
In the comments to Jeremy’s post, Marten Mickos tries to clarify that it is more specifically high-end enterprise type add-ons to the core MySQL system that will be only available to MySQL Enterprise and that the license for this is as yet undecided.
There’s no real way to effectively close source an open-sourced application, but developing new features in a closed source edition is very doable. It remains to be seen whether it will be a successful attempt as MySQL has gained much from it’s Community use in terms of both release testing (the shear number of MySQL users out there) and goodwill.
Tags: database, open source, software
open source powershell implementation
Miguel tells us of pash. I was interested in this back when it was called Monad Shell, but never really got into it. The good thing about pash though is that it’s relatively cross platform (Linux, MacOSX, Windows and even WindowsCE). Might have to have another look at it.
Update: Apparently pash is still at the stage where it’s an open source re-implementation of Monad Shell and not quite a Power Shell replacement… yet.
Tags: .net, mono, open source, software