Sell MySQL, Co-Founder to Oracle

Bangalore: MySQL Co-Founder Michael "Monty" Widenius has expressed his concern over the proposed Oracle-Sun merger and has suggested Oracle to sell MySQL to settle the merger. In a statement posted on his blog on Monday, Widenius said the European Commission is "absolutely right to be concerned" about the $7.4 billion takeover of Sun by Oracle, and he urged Oracle to sell MySQL to clear up any antitrust issues, according to CNET.

In his blog, Widenius asked Oracle "to be constructive and commit to sell MySQL to a suitable third party, enabling an instant solution instead of letting Sun suffer much longer." The famed MySQL developer, who departed Sun earlier this year, said that he wishes Sun "all the best, but MySQL needs a different home than Oracle, a home where there will be no conflicts of interest concerning how, or if, MySQL should be developed further."

"Letting Oracle have MySQL is worse than putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, because the hens are no threat to the fox, while MySQL makes Oracle lose customers and forces it to grant discounts to customers threatening to defect. Every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open-source challenger, and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice. This is highly critical because the entire knowledge-based economy is built on databases," said Florian Mueller, an EU policy expert who is a former MySQL shareholder and adviser.

The deal had received approval from U.S. Department of Justice in August but the European Commission opened a probe in early September, citing fear that Oracle's ownership of MySQL could pose a competitive threat. Every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open-source challenger, and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice.

Richard Stallman, founder of the free-software movement, wrote an open letter to the EU on Monday opposing an Oracle-owned MySQL as a threat that would hinder its further development in the open-source community.

Meanwhile Sun continues to suffer. Few days back the company announced that it would lay off another 3,000 employees, about 10 percent of its total workforce, over the next year. This latest round is in addition to 6,000 jobs cuts announced almost a year ago as part of the company's restructuring plan.

Mahindra Satyam may lay off 5000 benchers

Chennai: Months after assuring that there would be no further lay offs, Mahindra Satyam may just lay off another 5000 benchers. Many employees on the Virtual Pool Program (VPP) of the company have been sent a formal notice of two months by e-mail.

According to the Times of India, the mail dated October 19, reads: "In our earlier communication dated June 11, 2009, you were placed on VPP for a period of six months and accordingly, your Virtual Pool Leave is due to end on December 18, 2009. It is rather unfortunate that due to the continued economic constraints and business outlook, we do not anticipate that we will have the ability to recall many of our valued associates within the VPP period."

On June 11, the company had announced the creation of the virtual pool, placing around 8,000 associates on the bench. "The surplus employees will be put in the VPP and paid basic salary, PF and medical insurance," Vineet Nayyar, CEO, Tech Mahindra, had said while ruling out any retrenchment.

However, with the six-month period of the VPP set to lapse in December, the company has served a two-month notice, as required by the employment contract, reportedly on over 5,000 employees. Sources said that the company did not have enough projects on hand and was not able to recall many associates.

A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson said that the company had absorbed about 1,500 associates from the virtual pool. The spokesperson also denied that the company was "laying off" people, even as the mail speaks of "separation of employment".

"We have given these employees an option of availing outplacement services. We will try to help them to the best of our abilities," he said.

Now, a search engine for fun activities

Bangalore: A new search engine Goby.com has come up, which allows users to search for activity and help them find things to do in the city. Goby uses three boxes - What, Where and When - with drop-down menus to find results for your query. It crawls the Web searching from 500 sources and employs a part-human, part-machine review process to ensure first-rate results. Goby searches through over 200 categories, including live music, art exhibits, outdoor festivals, spas, bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants, according to Wall Street Journal.

Though Goby's query boxes ask users to enter What, Where and When, the When is always an optional specification. The What box opens five categories: things to do, food and drink, events, places to stay and, fall fun. Many of these open several more-specified subcategories. The Where box opens up a Map of the U.S to help users to search for location much more effectively.

Lists of query results are deliberately designed to show more than just Web links, like what Google often displays. Suggested activities are displayed in a numbered list on the left side of the screen, and a map with corresponding numbers is displayed on the right, moving along with your cursor as you scroll on the page. A blue flashlight tool on the map can be dragged anywhere to pinpoint exactly where you want to find activities. It also has a 'f Share on Facebook' option on all its search results.

Goby.com has been available to the public for only a few weeks and it is still working out some kinks. Goby still has many errors on its search result and sometimes the same results are listed four times in a row. Photos representing these activities are pulled in from source sites like bedandbreakfast.com as well as from Google and Flickr. While these images can help user save time, some of the results were not accurate. Also, the search engine currently only pulls out results from the U.S.

Goby does not let users build an itinerary. So if a user finds couple of interesting things or events on Goby, they cannot save it. The company says it plans to incorporate these features in the near future. It would be incredibly helpful if Goby had a mobile app. Goby says it is working on an iPhone app, which it expects to release later this year.

Goby just needs to be more accurate and expand to other country searches as well to completely become a fun activity search engine

Beggar can be Choosers

A man walks past a beggar every day and gives him Rs. 10 and that Continues for a year. Then suddenly the daily donation changes to Rs. 7, 50.

" Well," the beggar thinks, " it's still better than nothing."

A year passes in this way until the man's daily donation suddenly becomes Rs. 5.

" What's going on now?" the beggar asks his donor. " First you give me Rs. 10 every day, then Rs. 7,50 and now only Rs. 5. What's the problem?"

" Well," the man says, " last year my eldest son went to university. It's very expensive, so I had to cut costs. This year my eldest daughter also went to university, so I had to cut my expenses even further ."

" And how many children do you have?" the beggar asks.

" Four," the man replies.

" Well," says the beggar, " I hope you don't plan to educate them all at my expense".

Dippawali-dipo ka tayohar

Every year we eagerly wait for this special day, according to Hindu religion, called Diwali i.e. festival of lights. No matter where you live, but I'm sure all Indians feel a different vibe on Diwali. After living in States for about 10 years, we have developed our own way of celebration and keeping the tradition alive.

Our Diwali starts on the first day of Diwali, Dhanteras, by cleaning up the whole house and prepare or buy sweets from Indian stores. In the evening the true essence of Diwali comes with lighting the Diyas and decorating the home with them. Buying some Gold/Silver on this auspicious day of the year is a custom.

Diwali bring joy and happiness in our lives. It rejuvenates our enthusiasm to live and look forward to it. By telling the stories behind Diwali celebration to our kids is the tradition we started and will be done each year.

The whole family's involvement is the key to this festival. That's what we have seen since our childhood. On Diwali night we perform Laxmi poojan wearing new clothes and gathering all possible Poojan samagree (puja items). Indian sweets and mouthwatering snacks are main attractions of Diwali. After Laxmi poojan at our places , we have a tradition from many years to gather at any of our friends' place for Dinner or playing with firecrackers. The Dinner is usually Potluck to try delicious recipes of everyone participating.

The Dinner is followed by the fun tradition, playing cards or any other game as a group. This is one festival that we all celebrate the very same day, the Diwali is, regardless of weeknight/weekend night.

We all hope to enjoy Diwali every year together keeping all the traditions alive.

Happy Diwali.

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