SQLFusion blogs

For those of you who follow the same blogs as I do, this map will come as no surprise. But if you are not a consistent reader of Dan Grossman, John Batelle or Tim O'Reilly's blogs, then you may be interested in this chart, which tries to summarize how the Web has evolved as a platform.

You can see the map here.

Here are some of the points that I particularly like in this graph. These are what come out of having the Web as a platform (i.e. moving applications from the desktop to the Web):

"You control your own data", "Architecture of participation", "Harnessing collective intelligence", "The right to remix", "Trust your users", "Rich user experience" and "User behavior not determined".

Even then, this graph seems too complex. Do any of you have a more synthesized version of what the Web as a platform will become?

I was recently interviewed by Ben from SocalTech about our company, its space and our funding process.

SocalTech is a great source of news on funding and events on local tech companies in southern california.

http://socaltech.com/fullstory/0002399.html

There is a belief that open source software is more secure.
A lot of people are using firefox because they thinks it's more secure than Internet Explorer.
According to Symantec that's not the case. In the past 6 months they have recorded twice as many vulnerabilities in Mozilla/Firefox than in Internet Explorer.
I've seen similar reports on some Linux distributions like Fedora versus Microsoft servers.

So is open source really more secure?

Yes it is.
Because the development and support process is much more adapted to security threats.
Flaws in open source applications are generaly fixed and deployed much more quickly.
The risk and danger of those flaws is much more limited, by design. You can't get Administrator access from an open source web browser.

What may explain why you have more identified vulnerabilities on open source software is that its source code is read by thousands of people.
So you can expect a mature open source application to reach a point where it will have no security flaws, or a very small number.
This didn't happen for Internet Explorer, which hasn't evolved much in the past 5 years and is still full of security flaws.

I found an interesting thread in Webhostingtalk yesterday.

The person who started the thread is inquiring as to what a website which reviews web hosting companies should contain, in order to be truly useful for people who want to host web sites and are in the process of assessing various web hosting offers.

I think the idea is really interesting. Indeed, choosing a web hosting company is a real challenge today. I cannot recall any web site which covers the hosting industry and which exhaustively and fairly reviews all the existing companies and their offers. I know that it is possible to get a broad idea of who are the top players in the industry (see Webhosting.info ) and that there are around 35,000 Webhosting companies worldwide. It is also possible to find several directories, where the position in the directory is tied to how much was paid for the placement by the web hosting company (For example Webhostdir.com and Tophost.com ).

If ever I wanted to compare a webhost Alpha with a webhost Beta, all I can do is go to their websites, pick up my pen, hope that they are disclosing everything properly as I write down what each of them offers... and even then, how can I know what level of experience of their technical team has, how reliable their servers and backup system are, etc. The only way would be to give them a try and hope for the best... Playing trial and error with 35,000 webhosts could be painful.

I often receive e-mail or calls from people who, for instance, would like a list of web hosting companies offering the online site builder Drag Drop site creator ( See it here ) that we offer to web hosting companies and ISPs. I am sure that it would be much easier for those people - and for Web hosts - to have a "Google"/"Cnet" site comparing, reviewing all the existing web hosting companies and what they offer.

So I wish long life to this project and I hope you will take the time to add your ideas to this Webhostingtalk thread. ( Click here to read the thread. )

Open source is not about FREE (no money) software its about better software.
One of the main rule is multiple group, companies, individuals sharing an interest in one project.
They will all contribute to a componant or a core software that will benefits their product line.
If they are commercial companies they will compete on add-on features, user interfaces, integration or services but will all contribute back to the open source project.

Some will critique and say that only the GPL IS Open Source. I think the GPL is a great license and one of the main reason of the Open Source stability and current explosion.
But in the global software industry I see the GPL as an extreme license.

The GPL is to the open source what Microsoft is to the proprietary software.

"If I dig a very deep hole in the Earth, where will I arrive?"

When I was a kid I read a book by Jules Vernes called "Voyage au centre de la Terre" (Travel to the center of the Earth). I became fascinated by all the mysteries which might lie just under our feet. However, no matter how deep I tried to dig back then, I could never reach the center. The dream was alive, but it seemed unlikely it would be realized.

Some weeks ago, I read "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman and discovered that this planet is being "flattened" by technology today. People can work with each other wherever they are in the world, using nothing more than a computer... it is as if everybody is all in the same room, hearing each other, interacting immediately with one another.
The funny thing is that SQLFusion takes part in this astonishing phenomenon, by developing software which provides real-time collaboration capabilities to those who want to build web applications using Open Source technology.

Today, surprisingly, I discovered that my kid's dream has become true... it is now possible to dig through the Earth. It is possible to travel through the center of the Earth... using an original Google maps application. If you dont believe me, check: http://grad.icmc.usp.br/~cipriani/bighole.php?lang=en

Here comes my conclusion for the day, and for my first blog entry:

No matter how absurd our hopes and dreams can be, they are worth sharing. Think of how many pages Jules Verne wrote, for instance. Indeed, those dreams could become true one day. :)

So I hope you will enjoy reading about the dreams we have here, at SQLFusion. The entire SQLFusion team hopes you will contribute with your own wildest dreams...

...just be aware that those wild dreams might soon come true!

We were affected by the power outage.
Our servers are in the Garland building in downtown Los Angeles. They have a UPS backup, but after the batteries ran out the generators failed to take over. The power outage began at about 12 pm and our servers shutdown at around 2 pm.
We were fortunate in that the downtime was only about 10 minutes, and then power was restored and most machines came back up on their own.
One of our servers didn't boot, so I went to the data center to manually reboot it. There were a lot of other people there doing the same.
This is a good wake-up call for disaster recovery plans.

A Bill Gates Interview on Google, Web applications and Open Source.
Very interesting, although it's a bit of a sales pitch. But the difference between the Microsoft software legacy and future trends is clearly evident.
He even talks about Frontbridge (an email company) -- we helped manage their massive MySQL Open Source database. It had more than a terabyte of data.
I don't know if Frontbridge was still using MySQL at the time of purchase, but when we worked with them they had a very strong open source culture, using Postfix, MySQL, PHP and Perl.
http://news.zdnet.com/Bill+Gates+takes+on+Google/2100-9593_22-5864352.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

That news is about Microsoft targeting the SMB market. Microsoft is also going after the web designers and web developers:
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/default.aspx