Relational databases like MySQL, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL are everywhere in today's computing world. Are they always necessary, though? Perhaps a more appropriate question is: Are relational databases the best solution for storing data created with object-oriented programs? Enterprise software developer, consultant, and 2007 JavaOne speaker Ted Neward addressed that very issue in a paper published last year entitled "The Vietnam of Computer Science." This "Vietnam" article was discussed heavily in the Java development community, which raised enough post-publication issues to warrant a follow-up piece. Today the second "Vietnam" article is available on ODBMS.org. In the below interview, both Ted and db4objects CEO Christof Wittig discuss the problems presented by object/relational mapping, some potential solutions to those problems, and offer explanations for why programmers continue to make the same database mistakes despite the quagmire frequently presented by ORM.

A small Atlanta, GA-based Internet radio station is threatening to unleash its lawyers on a technology blogger. Internet radio station Atlanta Blue Skye LLC has warned Radu-Cristian Fotescu, a Romania-based technology enthusiast and prolific blogger, that his Beranger.org blog has been "copied" and turned over to its lawyers. The issue stems from Fotescu's posting of a widely known workaround for bypassing JavaScript functions that try to disable a mouse's right-click context menu functionality, and the posting of information gathered from the Properties function of Windows Media Player.

JavaScript is a difficult language to learn, and thus requires a good book, class, or mentor to really learn how to use it effectively. There are many good reference books on JavaScript, and a few that focus on Ajax in general, but both assume that you are already a JavaScript master (or at very least a journeyman). What the market needs is not another advanced book on Ajax, but a good JavaScript primer. O'Reilly's Learning JavaScript appears to fit that niche at first glance, but it quickly descends into an over-technical, poorly explained, typo-filled mess that is entirely inappropriate for JavaScript beginners.

It's been more than a year since the inception of the Mambo Foundation and the melodrama it sought to end. Now in its sixth year as a free software project, Mambo's momentum continues with the recent release of version 4.6.2. With that in mind, Ric Shreves, the president of the Mambo Foundation and member of the Mambo Steering Committee, took some time to answer a few questions about Mambo and the Mambo Foundation.

Few software technologies are more difficult to learn to implement than the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Most commonly you'll know LDAP as Active Directory on Windows or OpenLDAP on just about every other operating system. It was designed to make system administration easier, but unless you know how to install, configure, and successfully implement it, OpenLDAP can't do a thing for you. Fortunately for those of us who weren't born omniscient, O'Reilly has a great book on the subject: LDAP System Administration.

This editorial is an experiment. It was originally written by Radu-Cristian Fotescu for his blog, but he offered us the chance to publish it here on The Jem Report as well. It is extremely long, and divided up into separate pages, which is something I don't usually do with articles. So the format in which this is published is the first experiment. The second experiment is a matter of this article's content. I don't agree with everything Radu-Cristian says in his article, but I very much agree with what he is doing, which is to take a brutally honest look at the failures of the open source community and demand that we begin to recognize them instead of continuing to ignore the parts that aren't working correctly. This is the first step in fixing some of the problems that frustrate us all as GNU/Linux and *BSD users. Maybe it's time for a great re-examination of our processes and attitudes, and think about what needs to be done to create great software instead of continuing to perpetuate old mistakes on the basis that tradition, politics, rhetoric, and dogma are more important than critical thinking.

The phrase "I am not a lawyer" (IANAL for short) is used with alarming frequency when publicly discussing the increasing number of legal issues surrounding patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets (what is commonly referred to generally as intellectual property, or IP for short) in the technology industry. Seldom do we hear directly from the IP trenches; most of the public commentary on IP issues seems to come from bloggers, so-called "luminaries" or "thought leaders," news editors, and press-hungry CEOs, few or none of whom are qualified to offer informed opinions on these subjects. In this interview, Jack Haken, the vice president of the Philips Intellectual Property and Standards and 2006-2007 visiting professor at Fudan University Law School in Shanghai, China describes some of the work he does as an IP attorney for a technology company that has had a significant impact on the computer, audio, and video technology industries, explains some of the issues facing technology companies today, and offers some advice to open source software developers.