July 2008
4 posts
Sun Approved: Merge from BSD Java to OpenJDK
Sun has approved merging the JRL-licensed BSD Java to the GPLv2+ClassPath OpenJDK-6. That means that all of the BSD Java changes, including the SoyLatte Mac OS X port, can now be sent to the OpenJDK project, and an official BSD porters group can be proposed:
The purpose of this letter is to confirm our understanding that you are providing to Sun under the terms of the Sun Contributor Agreement...
Book: Geographic Information Systems and Science
This week I spent a couple days reading through Geographic Information Systems and Science (Paul Longley, Michael Goodchild, David Maguire, David Rhind).
The book is an excellent introduction to GIS — covering everything from basic principals and vocabulary to statistical analysis and project planning. In this, I’d place the book up there with Data Modeling Essentials or Applied...
Ruby the new Visual Basic?
Has Ruby become the new rapid application development tool for common application developers? Ruby seems to be filling the traditional roles (and seeing the same sorts of developers) as tools like VisualBasic or REALBasic, especially in terms of rapid development of web applications (as opposed to desktop applications).
Doing some Googling, I’m not the first one to ask this question: Is...
Free Street Map Data?
If you’re interested in GIS, you’ve surely come across the OpenStreetMap project — they’re working to “provide free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them.”
Only problem is their rather unexpected choice of license for their data: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license
See: OpenStreetMap License
This choice of licensing...