“A community is a group of people who continue to learn about one another. The biggest growth inhibitor in a community is fear. The biggest growth promoter is passion. A community not simply a group of people who share a common interest—that’s called a marketing niche. “

Marten Mickos today confirmed with Stephen Shankland @ CNET that Oracle tried to buy MySQL. Not sure when, but it sounds recent (and, I suspect, more than once). It's not surprising that Oracle would make this move, though it surprises me that it wasn't IBM (which is not to say that they haven't tried, too - I haven't asked Marten that) - IBM has a clear strategy of using open source as a "low-end" alternative to its high-end products.

What is most impressive in all this (and just one reason that I think Marten is one of the top CEOs anywhere, and certainly in open source business) is Marten's response to Stephen's question as to why not sell:

"We will be part of a larger company, but it will be called MySQL."

It takes a hell of a lot to out-chutzpah Larry Ellison - the great thing is that Mårten doesn't even look crass while doing it.

Marten Mickos today confirmed with Stephen Shankland @ CNET that Oracle tried to buy MySQL. Not sure when, but it sounds recent (and, I suspect, more than once). It's not surprising that Oracle would make this move, though it surprises me that it wasn't IBM (which is not to say that they haven't tried, too - I haven't asked Marten that) - IBM has a clear strategy of using open source as a "low-end" alternative to its high-end products.

What is most impressive in all this (and just one reason that I think Marten is one of the top CEOs anywhere, and certainly in open source business) is Marten's response to Stephen's question as to why not sell:

"We will be part of a larger company, but it will be called MySQL."

It takes a hell of a lot to out-chutzpah Larry Ellison - the great thing is that Mårten doesn't even look crass while doing it.

After a short break the PHP Life team are back. In this strip we look at the Zend/Oracle deal. If Oracle do buy-out Zend then let's hope things fare better for the Zend staff than Oracle staff at the moment!

You can see it here (on his blog), or on the PHP Life site...

This is, I believe, a major point of failure for the PHP community. As many have pointed out to me more than once (not that I had anything to do with it, or that I would be able to do anything about it), allowing PHP-related applications to contain the word "PHP" is a major mistake, because it dilutes the value of the brand itself by allowing the quality of PHP to be associated with the value of products that have nothing to do with PHP proper.

He mentions that searches for things like "php vulnerabilities" come up more with things for apps written in PHP and less with results about PHP itself. He even suggests that there isn't a really useful application type that has a PHP-written option that doesn't use the PHP "brand" in its title. He finishes it off with three simple rules that he suggests will help to dilute the PHP brand - don't use it in your application title, always reference that PHP is a trademark of the PHP group (and that there's no association between you), and use the PHP logo in only a descriptive way.

Last Friday I spoke at the PHP UK Conference in London on the eZ components. (Presentation slides as as usual on the talks page). I enjoyed this conference, which was organized by the PHP London User Group. This was their first conference, and the organizers did an excellent job. I always enjoy going to a conference for users (as opposed to business conferences) so much more.

He mentions the talk from Harry Fuecks on Ajax and Latency and the webcast he's doing this Friday with php|architect on the eZ components framework.

Last Friday I spoke at the PHP UK Conference in London on the eZ components. (Presentation slides as as usual on the talks page). I enjoyed this conference, which was organized by the PHP London User Group. This was their first conference, and the organizers did an excellent job. I always enjoy going to a conference for users (as opposed to business conferences) so much more.

Harry Fuecks had an interesting session on Ajax and Latency where he describes that Ajax frameworks need to come a long way before they are really usable. I can not agree more with the points that he made.

In case you are interested in hearing about the eZ components and you missed my talk in London, I will be giving a similar presentation through php|architect by means of a webcast next Friday. This is a free webcast for which you can sign up here.

Of course a trip by me never goes without taking pictures, you can find them in my gallery.