http://r0ml.net/blog R0ML is Taking IT Personally Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:22:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It turns out that nobody seems to know how to build a Universal version of PostgreSQL for OSX. This turned into a problem for me when I was trying to build a version of PHP with support for postgres -- I needed Universal (four-architecture) libraries. The following seems to work ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2008/06/19/universal-postgres In February of 1975, I read The Annihilation of Angkor Apeiron by Fred Saberhagen in Galaxy magazine. This not-so-recent news story reminded me of it. Perhaps I need to explain. The resolution of AoAA hinges upon a point of intellectual property protection, i.e. how would a publisher of dictionaries ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2008/04/11/the-annihilation-of-angkor-apeiron Recently, I found myself in the San Francisco airport. As I always do, while waiting for the flight, I started juggling. A few minutes later, this guy walks into the waiting room. "Is this the juggling area?" he asks. "Yup", sez I. And he ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2008/04/10/its-gaining-in-popularity There's a lot of talk these days about software factories. And books about software development borrowing from practices and processes used in automotive manufacturing. This is based on the premise that developing and delivering an application or functional enhancement is as complex as building an automobile, or locomotive. When ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/09/18/would-you-like-mustard-on-that It doesn't mean what you think it means. http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/09/18/whats-gnu I was on a conference call with a group of IT application architects, and, with a few minutes left until the end of the scheduled hour, the summary of the meeting began with that phrase: "History teaches us ...". As an amateur historian, my interest was immediately piqued. ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/09/08/history-teaches-us I promised at PyCon I'd post my slides. It took me longer than it should have. The deck is here. http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/03/13/pycon-followup Matt Asay suggests that a definition for an open source company would be: An open source company is one that, as its core revenue-generating business, actively produces, distributes, and sells (or sells services around) software under an OSI-approved license. So, supposing that a company produces a software product. It is released ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/03/07/food-for-lawyers Nat asks a difficult question. One that I am frequently in the habit of posing, although not as straightforwardly. For example, the copyright notice for Windows XP (I haven't seen the one for Vista yet) advises us that Portions of this product are based in part on the ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/03/01/weighing-in While I was away on vacation, I got tagged by Nick and Stephe, so I guess I have to cough up the Five Things. Ever mindful that one's identity is established by "the set of things you don't know about me" (you know, mother's maiden name, name of first ... http://r0ml.net/blog/2007/01/08/another-five-things