Treff LaPlante

MySQL Journal on Ulitzer Open source software, in brief, is software that is distributed under a specific type of license. Open source licenses attempt to ensure the code is freely distributed. The vision is of large communities of developers and users who both give and get software code freely. Note that this does not mean the code can't be "owned" per se, it just means that it has to be distributed without cost. Open source software has become an underpinning of most businesses. It also touches most consumer products. If you spend any time at all browsing the Web, you have most definitely touched a wide range of open source components. If your business uses any Web-based applications, they are likely to be composed in part from open source components. For example, your... (more)

Primitive Is the New Advanced

Mark Twain was credited with saying, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." People figured out long ago that a letter with fewer words, though more powerful, was more difficult to write. It seems technologists only now are beginning to learn that lesson. Just a few years ago, technology was better when it had more features. Technology with fewer featur... (more)

Lessons from Being Listed in Wikipedia

A Nov. 30 article in the Business Journal covered some of our experiences with being a company listed on Wikipedia, and with that listing being challenged. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the lessons we learned and provide some simple advice for those of you who would like your organizations listed on Wikipedia. Wikipedia Moderators Make Hitler Look Like a Hobbyist First,... (more)

5GL PaaS

The debate has raged for some time now about the exact definition of a 5GL.  One might argue that there also is still some debate going on about what exactly is a Platform as a Service PaaS.  Throw together two semi-ambiguous industry-specific buzzwords and what do you get?  Well, for all of you cynics out there, the answer is NOT "a great marketing opportunity!" In all seriousness, taken... (more)

Does the cloud change age-old build-or-buy dilemma?

Historically, when an organization needed software, it had two basic paths: buy something already built and use it as-is or build from scratch. Both paths have been fraught with peril, as witnessed by the 2009 CHAOS report that showed only 32 percent of projects being successfully completed and nearly one in four projects cancelled before completion. The problem with deploying pre-built soft... (more)