Netflix went down over three hours ago, and everyone is on edge here. My son just started reciting the script to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in an attempt to keep our courage up. This may be the last thing I ever write, so — Oh, never mind, it’s back up again … Crisis averted, and on to this week’s developer news.
We have an App Store Appstore for that!
Amazon this week unleashed their own Appstore for Android devices. Apple took umbrage at the use of the (evidently trademarked) term “App Store” and fired a salvo of lawyers across Amazon’s bow. Amazon responded by essentially saying “Hey, app store is a generic term.” To which Apple responded “So is windows, and Microsoft gets to protect that …”
Given that Apple gave Amazon multiple warnings not to use the App Store tag, it’s unclear why Amazon decided to be the one application store to challenge Apple for use of it. And unlike nebulous patent claims, trademark claims are pretty straightforward. Amazon is going to have a hard time arguing that their use of the term “Appstore” is sufficiently different from Apple’s App Store, and that there couldn’t be any confusion. But however things fall out in the end, the only winners, of course, will be the lawyers.
A moment of silence for Sun.com, please
An old and venerable friend is passing away, and we should all take a moment to reflect on the long and fruitful life that it led. Oracle has announced that they will be decommissioning the sun.com domain, the 12th oldest domain name on the Internet. For those of us whose fingers can type “java.sun.com” automatically, it will be a jarring change.
I first encountered Sun way back in 1985 when Xerox AI Systems decided to port their Interlisp workstations to run on Sun hardware. The Sun 4/110 on my desktop was (to me at the time) the coolest thing on the planet. For a while, it seemed like Sun (along with Cisco) was the Internet. Now the last major vestige of Sun, their domain, will be sold off like cattle. Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye …
O’Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo, being held April 11-14, will spread the latest and best knowledge on MySQL and related technologies to the global open source community.
Bake for 20 minutes, and Drizzle liberally with SQL
One of the side-effects of Oracle acquiring Sun is that MySQL was thrown into somewhat of a turmoil. Forked versions seemed to be cropping up everywhere. Now the first of the baby-MySQLs is getting on the bus and heading off to school, as Drizzle has announced their general availability release.
For individuals and companies looking for an alternative to Oracle’s MySQL offering, Drizzle offers an API-compatible replacement that aims to be a leaner, meaner database optimized for high-performance operations. For those wanting a more traditionally MySQL experience without the Oracle baggage, MariaDB is still out there, of course.
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