Ever since Oracle got its hands on MySQL via the Sun acquisition, many in the open source community have been hoping for a new open source database champion to emerge, notes Alan Shimel. With the release of version 9.0, it looks like PostgreSQL is stepping into the void. Some say PostgreSQL is the world's most advanced open source database. Alan Shimel interviews two of the projects leading contributors. They discuss many of the latest, greatest features in 9.0.
The OpenBTS project was by ‘Camp Papa Legba', named after the Haitian Loa.
“In Haitian Vodou, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits of Guinee, and is believed to speak all human languages. He is always the first and last spirit invoked in any ceremony, because his permission is needed for any communication between mortals and the loa – he opens and closes the doorway. In Haiti, he is the great elocution, the voice of God, as it were. Legba facilitates communication, speech and understanding.”
Openmoko™ is a project dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open source software stack. Openmoko is currently selling the Neo FreeRunner phone to advanced users and will start selling it to the general public as soon as the software is more developed.
Phi Beta Iota: We've had our say on “Open Everything” GNOMEDEX and again at “Open Everything” UNICEF, and it just keeps getting better and better. The cell phone is the principle device for Hacking Humanity, in part because it enables micro-everything including directed micro-giving and micro-trading with Open Money.
Below are two related items:
Updated Chart on Mobile Phone Applications (by sunset eastern)
EXCERPT: Today I bring you a story that has it all: a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that's revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots. It uses VoIP yet works with existing cell phones. It has pedigreed founders. Best of all, it is part of the sex, drugs and art collectively known as Burning Man. Where do you want me to begin?
“We make GSM look like a wireless access point. We make it that simple,” describes one of the project's three founders, Glenn Edens. The technology starts with the “they-said-it-couldn't-be-done” open source software, OpenBTS.
Right now the Categories include, in this order: Video Games, Television, Commercials, Current Events, Sports, Movies, Music.
Phi Beta Iota: Now imagine this in all languages, available on the cell phone, as an educational tool that also harnesses the cognitive surplus–the distributed intelligence–of the Whole Earth. Our view of YouTube is now such that we consider it more important than Google.
On the move to open source (or some other non-open source license like CC) and which license will be used:
“Reason for making Geoportal open source? Like anyone, Esri responds to trends in the IT industry, we listen to requests from our users to take a more collaborative approach to development, and source code was already part of the Geoportal license: It just made sense to do this now. The choice for creative commons has not been finalized, but is a good model for the approach we’re looking for. We are still reviewing the most optimal license model.”
Phi Beta Iota: If Oracle were to leverage Sun Office and immediately offer the eighteen analytic functionalities defined in Diane Webb's CATALYST, all as open source, that would be a game-changer. In the meantime, hats off to ESRI for finally getting the picture on F/OSS.
EXTRACT 1: An endless supply of data, probably unparalleled in its breadth and depth, flows from every continent to a cluster of buildings on the edge of the English Garden in Munich. An encyclopedia of life, its dangers, its injustices, its coincidences, is being assembled there. There is probably no other place on Earth where the risks of the modern world are being studied more intensively and comprehensively than at the headquarters of Munich Re, the world's risk center.
EXTRACT 2: Today Munich Re wins accolades for its restraint, while its shareholders are eagerly awaiting the results of a new project. The goal of the project under development in Oechslin's department, more comprehensive than any other project before it, is to redefine the limits of knowledge by developing a global risk model.
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Phi Beta Iota: This is a superb article that ably documents how much can be known–and shared–that most governments and international organizations are simply not conscious of, or if conscious, exploiting microscopic bits of the data for nefarious purposes. These are the kind of people that could and should be at the heart of creating a World Brain and Global Game.