Colin Charles Agenda

I believe all standards should become standards, based on their technical merits. Look at HTTP as a “standard” - pre-dating HTTP we had Gopher (and WAIS was our Google), but quite clearly, HTTP won the day. TCP is another good standard. These all have one thing in common: they’re open, easy to implement, and there are wide varieties of implementations of them (I can count apache, lighttpd, and numerous ones in Windows-land) that all work similarly.

The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is such a standard. Ratified as ISO26300. Implemented in OpenOffice.org and its derivatives. Implemented in StarOffice. Abiword, KOffice, Google Docs & Spreadsheets (okay, Google Office these days), IBM Workplace, and a lot more. There’s quite a good list on Wikipedia at the OpenDocument software page.

From the list above, you realise that implementations exist that aren’t just created by one entity. There are wide varieties of implementations. Generally, a good standard. Technically adept, for companies like Sun and IBM to back it.

Yet, Microsoft wants to pass OOXML (a competitor to ODF) as an ISO standard! There are many reasons why this is wrong, but the fact that there is no proper working implementation of such a standard (not even by Microsoft, might I add), makes me cringe if this were to be an ISO standard. Realistically, do we need two ISO document formats?

How far the No-OOXML petition goes, I cannot say. But I do encourage you to sign it (peruse the plenty of reasons there, too) - noooxml: Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard.

Technorati Tags: ooxml, noooxml, odf, opendocument, iso26300, openoffice.org, standards

Because I’m busy today, here’s what the announcement looks like (kudos to my colleagues Larry and Daniel for coming up with the following):

MySQL AB is very grateful for our very large Community, and it is important to us to meet and support our users! So we are happy to announce that Colin Charles, MySQL Community Relations Manager, APAC, will be visiting the following locations to meet with MySQL users.

Colin will be prepared to discuss the following with you:

• How to start your own user group
• Review of technical questions and issues
• The MySQL product roadmap and future directions
• MySQL product architecture

You can meet with Colin and speak to him one-on-one during following dates:

• Kuala Lumpur / June 27- July 12, 2007
• Singapore / July 4 - 6th, 2007
• Tokyo / September 11-12th, 2007
• Beijing / September 13-15th, 2007

We hope that you can make the time to meet with Colin. Please contact him directly at <colin@mysql.com> or call his Malaysia number at +6-012-204-3201. We expect the schedule to fill up quickly, so please contact Colin immediately if you want to get a time slot.

I’m also willing to speak at universities, user groups, etc. More technical oriented talks with regards to scaling, performance tuning, and benchmarks can also be entertained. And as is common in KL or Singapore, I’m ready for a mamak meetup session (if you’re wondering, read about mamak stalls from wikipedia), that’s usually casual enough, and will suit the after-work types.

Technorati Tags: mysql, apac, tour