IBM open sources millions of lines of its code

IBM has decided to contributute more than half a million lines of its software code, valued at $85 million, to the Apache Foundation. The move, according to the NYT, “is one of the largest transfers ever of proprietary code to free software, and I.B.M. is making the code contribution to try to help make it easier and more appealing for software developers to write applications in the Java programming language”.

The code is for the Cloudscape Java database, an integral part of IBM’s WebSphere (which competes head-on with Microsoft’s dot-Net). From now on, Apache will hold the licensing and intellectual property rights to the Cloudscape code.

Hmmm… interesting.

Code Orange. Or is it pale grey?

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, as a rule; in my experience, the cock-up theory of history usually provides the best explanations. But ever since it became clear from the Democratic Convention that John Kerry could conceivably win the election in November, I’ve been wondering what the Bush crowd would do to top it. Now we know — the Code Orange alert, with all the accompanying solemn warnings, armed cops everywhere, etc. It’s a reflection of how comprehensive Osama bin Laden’s victory has been that one’s first thought is not about the gravity of the alleged threat, but about whether this is just a losing Administration playing on the public’s fear much as a musician might play an organ. The journalistic coverage doesn’t help one decide: all I see are hacks solemnly intoning unsourced allegations. And the fact that the alleged ‘breakthrough’ came via Pakistani ‘Intelligence’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either.

And now there’s this from today’s NYT:

“Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.”

The only consolation is that the Administration’s power to ramp up the threat level to meet political needs might be a declining asset. After all, if things are this bad, the Prez can’t be doing as well as he claims in the ‘war’ against terror. Maybe a new guy would do better?

The curse of celebrity

It seems that my Prius has become a celebmobile. Harrison Ford has one. And now the great Bill Thompson, From Whom Nothing Is Hidden, tells me that Anthony Hopkins has one too. Hmmm… Maybe I should sell mine now before people start to think I read Hello! magazine?

Two AirportExpresses in the same town!

Shurely shome mishtake, as Private Eye used to say, in honour of Bill Deedes. But no: Quentin has an Airport Express too. He’s much too refined though to have his music blared out to him in the garden.

Steve Jobs has cancer op

The NYT is reporting that Jobs had a successful operation to remove a tumour. According to the Times, “Mr. Jobs, 49, said he had a form of pancreatic cancer that can be cured by surgical removal of the tumor. He said he would not have chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

‘I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which represents about 1 percent of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year,” he wrote in the message, which Apple made public on Sunday evening, “and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was).'”

I’m glad Jobs is going to be ok. He’s a bit of a monster (I know people who have worked for him), but at least he creates great products, and saved Apple from the scrapheap of computing history. I am inescapably reminded, though, of a terrible story about Evelyn Waugh (another monster). Waugh was sitting in his London Club one afternoon when someone came in and told him that their mutual friend, Randolph Churchill [Winston’s son], had undergone a successful operation to remove a non-malignant tumour. “Ah”, said Waugh, “the wonders of medical science: to have found the only bit of Randolph that wasn’t malignant — and then to remove it!

Airport Express

My AirportExpress arrived yesterday. It’s a typically neat Mac product — elegant in appearance, simple to set up. And it will breathe life into my old HiFi system, which has a wonderful pair of Tannoy speakers but had fallen into disuse ever since I started keeping my music on my computer. In the afternoon I was sitting in the garden with the windows open and the Tannoys blasting out Bruce Springsteen and Tracy Chapman singing Chimes of Freedom!

The device has far more interesting possibilities than this particular anti-social application however. It’s basically a portable base station. So next time I’m in a broadband-enabled hotel I will no longer be chained to the wall via an Ethernet cable. From now on, the AirportExpress will go in my bag wherever I go. (Thinks… Just as well I got that Brenthaven backpack…)

Another interesting possibility is to use it as a network extender — giving a wireless network a longer range by employing AirportExpress as a relay station. And of course, it’s a way of putting any USB printer on the wireless net.