I’m writing this post using MarsEdit, a well-designed blog client maintained by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software. Daniel recently wrote a very thoughtful note about software licensing:
Violating the GPL is easy. All you have to do is write some code, intermingle it with some GPL code, distribute a changed copy of the original, and refuse to share your contributions. Bam! You’re toast.
Many developers nonchalantly include code in their applications without carefully checking which license the code comes attached with. Daniel also writes about how GPL might stifle participation:
GPL communities are open and embracing of other GPL developers, but generally off-putting to liberal-license and closed-license developers. Only the liberal-license communities are attractive to developers from all 3 camps.
I agree. Truly free licenses, like the MIT license and the BSD license, don’t limit your freedom or require you to give away the fruits of your labor. Of course, GPL has seen tremendous success and popularity, but in my own projects (both as an open source consumer and contributor) I will choose a less restrictive license whenever possible.
Sax.net’s latest iPhone/iPod app is now available on iTunes: iDaily is a calendar application that shows you interesting facts about today:
- Famous people who are having their birthday today.
- Important events on this day in history.
- Nature facts, including the time the sun rises/sets and the current phase of the moon.
- Quote of the Day
You can use iDaily to:
- Keep yourself from being bored.
- Learn interesting conversation starters about today.
Join me at iPhone DevCamp 3, July 31 – August 2 (yes, that’s a weekend) on Yahoo Campus in Sunnyvale, CA.
It promises to be an exciting gathering of iPhone developers and stakeholders.
Speakers, keynotes, and a special musical guest will be announced shortly so be sure to sign up before it’s sold out.
Check out http://fixoutlook.org.
This is the smartest grassroots social media campaign I’ve seen in a long time. They send an email and encourage you to mention this site in a twitter message. The site shows a page with everyone who does.
Update: Microsoft Corporate VP William Kennedy posted a very disappointing response to the campaign. Disappointing not so much because they won’t change Outlook 2010: I didn’t have any expectations this late in the development cycle.
Microsoft’s response is disappointing because it was full of marketing double-speak:
We’ve made the decision to continue to use Word for creating e-mail messages because we believe it’s the best e-mail authoring experience around, with rich tools that our Word customers have enjoyed for over 25 years.
Word has always done a great job of displaying the HTML which is commonly found in e-mails around the world.
There is no widely-recognized consensus in the industry about what subset of HTML is appropriate for use in e-mail for interoperability.
William Kennedy should run for political office – he’ll fit right in. The response hypes up Word as a document/email creation tool without addressing the core criticism of the campaign about reading emails that contain fairly basic CSS-based HTML which has been around for many years now.
A few months ago I created EasyWriter, my first iPhone application. Although it started out as a bit of an experiment, EasyWriter became an instant hit with millions of downloads and a mass of delighted users. The purpose of the application was to let you write emails using a bigger, horizontal keyboard. Apparently Apple took notice because the latest version of the iPhone OS has some of EasyWriter’s capabilities as a built-in feature.
The release of the latest iPhone OS has effectively rendered the original version of EasyWriter obsolete. I’ve received a few emails from users enquiring if I plan to take or lobby for legal action against Apple for doing this. After all, that’s what companies like Netscape and Opera have done when Microsoft integrated some of the capabilities of their products into the operating system. The short answer is: absolutely not.
The instant success of EasyWriter made it clear that iPhone users wanted a feature that Apple had not anticipated. It’s perfectly natural for Apple to respond to this by improving their own software and meet the needs of their customers. Even if the iPhone’s dominance in mobile computing is rapidly approaching the level that Windows has enjoyed on the desktop, there’s nothing that should stop Apple from pleasing its customers. I believe in innovation, not litigation.
Working with giant companies like Apple is very much like dancing with an elephant: Sometimes you can get on top and enjoy enormous success while riding it. However, you have to be ready to respond quickly or you’ll fall off and get stomped when the elephant’s foot comes down. The elephant doesn’t even realize she may be squishing you. It’s up to you to turn every challenge into an opportunity.
So where does that leave EasyWriter? Alive and kicking! A new version, designed specifically for iPhone OS 3.0 is under development. I’m sure that iPhone users everywhere will appreciate the spell checker, Blackberry-style AutoText, and other innovative features. Innovation, not litigation.
Check out Dave Winer’s adventures with a Windows box on Amazon EC2. It reminds me of Jerry Pournelle’s old Chaos Manor columns in Byte: real world narration of adventures in using new and interesting technology. That’s much better than the reworked press release you get in many articles these days. At $93/month for a basic Windows box EC2 is not exactly cheap, but the flexibility and on-demand scalability is intriguing.
Like many site analytics applications, Google Analytics will track how many site users have Java, Flash, and other web technologies installed on their system (and which version). Notably absent from the list are the .NET Framework and Silverlight. I like Google Analytics, but this information is very important for me.
Nikhil Kothari has created a workaround with a snippet of Javascript code that will detect Silverlight and set Analytics variables.
Workarounds – even elegant ones like this one – often end up being maintenance problems. The possibility of something creating an unexpected Javascript error on every page of our website is not acceptable.
Maybe it’s time to check out Microsoft adCenter Analytics
Stephen Walther can save you hours of time with these Essential Visual Studio Tips & Tricks that Every Developer Should Know:
- You don’t need to select a line to copy or delete it
- You can add a namespace automatically by pressing CTRL-.
- Never create properties by hand.
- You can remove and sort unnecessary using statements.
- Use CTRL-k+c to comment out code.
- You can close all documents except the current one.
- You can open a database by double-clicking the database file in App_Data.
- You can copy a file or folder into a project by dragging and dropping.
- Use CTRL-SPACE to perform statement completion.
- Add new items by pressing CTRL-N or CTRL-SHIFT+A.
- You don’t need to type file extensions when adding a file.
Highly recommend.
As part of the Silverlight 2 announcement, Scott Guthrie also wrote:
Today we are also announcing the “Silverlight Control Pack” – which will deliver dozens of more controls that you can use with Silverlight 2. We will continually add new controls to the control pack over the next few months (we expect to ultimately have more than 100 controls total). The first release of the control pack will include controls like TreeView, DockPanel, WrapPanel, ViewBox, Expander, NumericUpDown, AutoComplete and more. All controls will ship with full source, and with a OSI license that allows you to modify and use the source for any purpose.
Will this kill the component market? Of course not! It will raise the bar of innovation for control vendors. We’ll have to do a lot more than come up with interesting widgets. The good news for Silverlight developers is that we’ll see a wide range of new components from third party vendors. These will go much beyond what we’ve seen in regular component UI widget suits, and help you get more done in less time. It’s an exciting time to be a Windows developer.
Publishing these controls with a very non-restrictive OSI license is a very wise decision on Microsoft’s part. I’m really impressed with the way Microsoft is embracing open source nowadays. I think they’re finally understanding the benefits and finding their place in this brave new world.
