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Photos from JavaOne

While the show wasn't as big as previous years, it was still a good showing.  Highlights included Oracle CEO Larry Ellison joining Sun Chairman Scott McNealy on stage during the opening keynote.  Here's some links to photos and video...

• Photos & Video: PicasaWeb, YouTube
• InfoWorld: Sun Joins App Store Trend, Fear Not Ellison's Commitment to Java

At Least He Never Walked

InfoWorld has declined to post my review of "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" because it is unrelated to open source.  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Having run a ten marathons, countless half-marathons and a few 100+ mile cycling days, I am sometimes asked what the appeal is of long distance running or cycling.  Despite he fact that I have been running for more than 30 years, it's not easy to explain.  Mostly I think you either get it, or you don't and no attempt to dissect the experience will make much sense.  But luckily, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has penned a short book of essays called "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" that explains his own fascination (or perhaps obsession) with long distance running and documents his ups and downs running in Japan, Hawaii, Boston and New York.  The book has been recommended to me by other long-distance runners in the open source world and, short of embarking on a 26 mile run from Athens to Marathon (yes, I know that's the wrong direction), it does the best job of explaining long distance running or perhaps any endurance sport.  For those who run, the marathon running is not just a metaphor for life, it becomes as important as the seasons in marking the flow of life.

I expect that this winter I'll run another marathon somewhere in the world.  And I'm sure come next summer I'll be out in another traithlon somewhere, giving it my best shot.  Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by.  I'll age one more year, and probably finish another novel.  One by one, I'll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can.  Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the scenery as far ahead as I can.  I am, after all, a long-distance runner.

My time, the rank I attain, my outward appearance --all of these are secondary.  For a runner like me, what's really important is reaching the goal I set myself, under my own power. I give it everything I have, endure what needs enduring, amd am able, in my own way, to be satisfied.  From out of the failures and joys I always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson...

And I hope that, over time, as one race follows another, in the end I'll reach a place I'm content with. Or maybe just catch a gimpse of it... 
Some day, if I have a gravestone and I'm able to pick out what is carved on it, I'd like it to say this:

Haruki Murakami
1949-20**
Writer (and Runner)
At Least He Never Walked

If you're a runner, or want to understand someone who is, this is a great read.  It's short, inspiring in a modest way, and you'll finish it in less time than it takes to get from Athens to Marathon.

MySQL User Conference April 20-23 (update)

 

The MySQL Conference & Expo will be upon us in another week.  Kaj (pictured above top middle in an negative sauna) is putting together a great keynote panel on Cloud computing and there will be many sessions on performance tuning and optimization. The keynotes look to continue in the tradition of having very strong speakers, this year featuring presentations from Karen Padir who now runs the overall MySQL development organization, as well as Mark Callaghan from Google, Chuck Hagenbuch who ran Obama's online presidential campaign, and Don MacAskill from SmugMug.  

Looks like this could be the biggest MySQL conference ever, so if you want to make sure you get into the best tutorials and sessions, register now to avoid the on-site surcharge or missing out on sold-out sessions.  

Even though my new role has me working with many other groups at Sun, the MySQL Conference still holds a special place for me and many others.  It will be great to see some old friends and new in Santa Clara.

Update:
Kaj blogged yesterday about getting Andy Bechtolsheim as keynote presenter for Thursday.  Bechtolsheim was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems and an early investor in Google.  Not only is he brilliant, he's a humble and unassuming guy. 

• MySQL: Conference & Expo, Keynotes, Tutorials, Sessions, Registration
• NY Times: Billionaire Thinks in Trillions

Forrester survey on open source adoption

Forrester published a study a few months back sponsored by Bull showing some pretty good stats on open source software adoption, both at the infrastructure and application levels.

There's also a good blog by Paolo from OpenBravo on a related topic on commercial open source business models and other factoids from the recent OSBC conference.

Working with Marten

(Or the perils of working at home too much)

I was out of town for Marten's going away party so I decide to put together a brief video recalling what it was like to work with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL for the last 5+ years.  Inspired by Joaquin Phoenix, or perhaps it was the Unambomber, it came out a bit weird.  But what the heck.

Marten, it just won't be the same without you.  Thank you for your leadership and the confidence you bestowed in those who worked for you.  Confidence enough to pay tribute to you in MySQL boxer shorts.  There's also a slightly more professional "Toast to Marten" video that I created at the OSBC conference. 

Seven Semi-Useless Facts

   

My good friend and open source-loving, running, beer-drinking community ambassador and MySQL VP Kaj Arnö (top row middle) has named me (bottom left) in the "7 useless facts" meme.  I don't mind.  I'd mentally prepared myself for this semi-fun semi-useless task when I saw Jay Pipes do this a few weeks ago.  I figured Kaj would fall soon and he would spread the virus, er fun, to me. 

Here are the rules:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Ok, so here are seven semi-useless facts.  I am not sure if they are suitably "random" or "weird" or both.  They are not completely useless because they all have links to somewhere more interesting.  (Or at least that's my goal.)  

1. A few years back, I created a humor site called www.valleyofthegeeks.com. I have not written any new material in several years, but there are some stories that I wrote there that still make me laugh. 
2. I have an identical twin brother, Michael, who is much smarter than me.  (Also more serious.) I occasionally write at a blog that he created called www.ondisruption.com.  If you don't have a twin I don't think you can fully appreciate how cool it is.  For Christmas, I just buy him what I would like.  And, there's always at least one person who remembers my birthday.
3. I managed to qualify and run the Boston marathon a couple of years ago with a qualifying time of 3:18.  While that's no world record, I still can't believe I ran that fast.  The good news is the older you get, the more time they give you to qualify.  I wish more things in life operated that way.  For runners, here's an article I wrote about how to run a marathon PR.  If you don't know what a PR is, then you might want to consider this article about running a first Marathon.  Sometimes I think I learned more from running marathons than almost anything else in life. 
4. I am learning to play electric guitar.  I won't say I suck, since that would be negative. But it's safe to say I am unlikely to get the call from Angus next time Malcolm's out sick.  But I believe "brute force" mastery can make up for almost any lack of innate talent.  However, at this point, my best musical contribution may be a blog I write at www.guitarvibe.com. 
5. In the Meyer-Briggs personality test, I am considered an ISTJ, heavy on the J.  That means I mean what I say and say what I mean.  At one point at MySQL many of the executives did a Meyer-Briggs test to help us better understand how and why we operated the way we did. It was a fun exercise and I  was glad that there was at least one person who was more J than I was.  (Maybe that's why we get along.)  I had done the Meyer-Briggs tests some years earlier and found it to be helpful to me in understanding aspects of my personality.  When I read the ISTJ description, it's scarily accurate.
6. A couple of years ago, I decided to grow my hair long in honor of my mother.  When my hair got long enough, no one recognized me.  Then , I cut it and, again, no one recognized me.  It's been liberating in a weird way.  If you're looking for a reason to grow your hair long, donating it to a charity is a pretty good excuse.
7. Kaj and I once did a negative sauna in Finland that went to -110 C (-166 F).  It was friggin' cold, so we sang Helan Går.  That's us in the photo afterwards.   

Ok, I hope that was moderately useless information.  And now I nominate the following good fellows to carry on this semi-useless factually quest.  (Sorry guys! Feel free to just make stuff up. I'm pretty sure that's what Kaj did.)

• Matt Asay CNet's super blogger
• Savio Rodrigues who also blogs about open source at InfoWorld
• Ben Riga of Microsoft
• Mark De Visser CEO over at Sonatype, creators of Maven 
• Stephen O'Grady superstar analyst at RedMonk who also means what he says
• Jacob Taylor co-founder and former CTO at SugarCRM
• Ovidiu Oprescu who has an awesome guitar blog www.guitarflame.com from Romania