You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, who has a long history as a contributing member of the Windows developer community. He enjoys long walks on the beach and various computer technologies.
Friday, Apr 4, 2003, 2:17 PM in .NET
ORM.NET v1.4 - auto-generate an ADO.NET data layer
Here. From Olero Software: Olero Software has released ORM.NET version 1.4 ORM.NET - .NET Object Relational Mapping Tool - is a powerful development application that auto-generates a data layer object model based on your SQL database schema. The generated run-time component exposes all tables as classes and columns as properties. Using the built-in DataManager object, users can easily retrieve data from multiple tables based on complex criteria without using stored procedures or embedded SQL code. In addition, data updates, inserts, and deletes can be saved to the database with one call. ORM.NET will save your hours of time and development cost. Download a free trial at: www.olero.com/ormweb/index.aspx?mp=sells
Friday, Apr 4, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Oregon & Open Source
Friday, Apr 4, 2003
I had an interesting experience yesterday when I was asked by Mike Sax to come to the Oregon capitol building to testify against HB 2892, known as the Open Source Software for Oregon Act. In general, the bill talks about the benefits of open source, open standards and open data formats, most of which I didn't have any issues with. However, I got up at 6a and drove an hour down to Salem because of the following clause:
"(2) For all new software acquisitions, the person or governing body charged with administering each administrative division of state government, including every department, division, agency, board or commission, without regard to the designation given the entity, shall:
...
(c) Provide justification whenever a proprietary software product is acquired rather than open source software;"
By requiring state government employees to write a special justifications, this bill erects artificial barriers to adopting commercial software, above and beyond the fact that commercial software requires an initial payment (which should be more than enough of an edge for open source software).
If you've never been to a government bill committee hearing, I highly recommend the experience. I was in a little hearing room with a bunch of other folks, all interested in this particular bill. I signed my name on the list of folks "against" the bill so that I would have a chance to testify. The chairman called first proponents of the bill and then opponents up to the microphone three at a time.
Some of the the proponents were teachers and school staff that had put Linux and other open source software to good use in combination with old computers used as thin clients against a back-end server (using X-Windows, I assume). They claimed that they solved themselves all kinds of trouble because open source software was "immune to viruses and security problems" (now *that's* effective propaganda! : ). Some of the proponents were embittered IT staff and new college grads looking to bring some old-fashioned democracy back into a country that had been recently taken over by corporations. It was all I could do to avoid pointing out to them that that the country had been taken over by corporations shortly after Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776 and the budding US government adopted the ideas therein to fund their new country. The basic story of the proponents was that open source was good, so it should be mandated over closed source.
The opponents, on the other hand, were largely suit-wearing fellows from large groups of commercial software corporations (one of which didn't hesitate to remind the esteemed committee that it's member companies had paid $135M in Oregon state taxes last year). Their arguments were that undoubtedly open source software was clearly already being used by government bodies, that there was no rule against it and that their should likewise be no rules against proprietary software. Only Mike, owner of a small Oregon-based software company, and me, owner of nothing at all of interest, represented the "little guy" on the opponent side (we stuck out because of the lack of either a neck tie or a suit coat).
19 copies of my written testimony were submitted without comment at the request of the chairman who assured the audience that all testimony would be read. My verbal testimony was limited to pointing out that shackling proprietary software was "bad engineering" because it could easily cost the state of Oregon more money in the long run; maintaining source code is a lot more difficult than maintaining commercial software for normal humans. I also pointed out that being open source did not prohibit viruses or security problems; the first computer virus ever was written on a Unix, the predecessor to Linux and that they share an identical security model. To be fair, Unix wasn't open source, but I stretched the truth less than the open source guys, so I didn't feel too bad (Unix was "source available" at the very least : ) And finally, I let the committee know that open source didn't mean open standards or open data formats and that, in fact, those were things that commercial software companies had done the most to bring into greater use over the years.
Having never done anything like that before, I wasn't sure how well I'd done, but one of my fellow panelist (a procurement officer from another giant suit-wearing organization) wrote "nice job" on his pad of paper while his colleague preached the wisdom of "amending the language" of the bill to be more "practical."
At the end of the hearing, the chairman of the committee called out some names of the most credible, suit-wearing fellows from each side of the debate to form a working group to come up with a bill that the committee could actually consider submitting for a vote. The sub-text was that the bill as it currently stood was pretty silly; it didn't allow any greater freedom to pick open source software but it did limit the ability to choose proprietary software, which wouldn't make those Oregon software company tax payers happy. This seemed a most sensible conclusion to me and gave me confidence that our government isn't so screwed up after all.
When the room was cleared, I was assaulted by one of the open source proponents, reminding me that Unix wasn't open source and that Linux would never have any such problems (which makes the presence of virus protection software for Linux seem like a very poor business decision). I was also cross-examined by a tall, thin, balding, old-ish man with the longest grey beard I've ever seen in person. He seemed very knowledgeable and was very interested in the details of my opinions. He reminded me of nothing more than a fallen Richard Stallman in 30 years and added to the surreality of the morning.
On the way back to our cars, Mike thanked me for coming and asked if I was glad that I'd come. It surprised me to learn that I was. Not only did I feel that my "just a guy" presence helped the suits make their case, but I felt like I was doing my duty as a citizen. Who knows, this experience might bring out the politician in me. I'm sure I could do at least as well as Jessie Ventura. : )
Thursday, Apr 3, 2003, 5:12 AM
Ecatenate Launches dbLockdown 1.0
Here. From Simon Train: Ecatenate dbLockdown 1.0 is a database tool to protect SQL Server and MSDE databases. The tool encrypts stored procedures, triggers, user defined functions and views, stopping anyone from viewing or editing them. Database scripts encrypted are automatically archived and can be restored at any time. dbLockdown uses SQL Server's native encryption and therefore does not compromise the functionality of database scripts. The tool is ideal for administrators and developers who need to lockdown production databases or databases shipped with products.
Thursday, Apr 3, 2003, 1:38 AM in .NET
ISO Certification of C# and the CLI
Here. From Andrew Webb: Broader reach than ECMA...
Thursday, Apr 3, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Testimony
Chris Sells
Sells Brothers, Inc.
8539 SW 166th Terrace
Beaverton, OR 97007
http://www.sellsbrothers.com
csells@sellsbrothers.com
Oregon State Representatives,
My name is Chris Sells and I run a one-man software consulting firm from my home in Beaverton, Oregon. For more than 20 years, I’ve been pretty much everything you can be in the software world: software engineer, chief architect, director, author, speaker, consultant and even marketer, so I know software ins and outs pretty well. In addition, I’ve been the treasurer for the Cooper Mountain Elementary School for the last two years, so I’m familiar with how important computer-related purchases are to at least one branch of the Oregon state government and how those decisions get made.
Before I start my testimony, I’d like to tell you about my experience in my high schools’s band. I played the trumpet for seven years, four of them in the marching band. I wasn’t great, but I loved to play. It gave me a deep feeling of satisfaction to be part of the band and to perform for the audience. I even continued my playing into one semester of college band, but it just wasn’t the same. The band at that level required a degree of skill and professionalism that I just didn’t have. Once I figured out that I didn’t have what it took to be a professional musician, I went on to find something else to make my living (computers).
By and large, open source software is often very much like a high school band. No one cares about the money. An open source programmer just wants to have their work seen and appreciated, regardless of whether they’re good enough, or thorough enough, to be paid for it.
Sometimes a high school band will be amazing; easily good enough to compete at any level. However, this is very rare when compared to professional bands that get paid based on how well they entertain their audience. Likewise, sometimes open source software achieves the same level of quality as closed source software. In those cases, I?m completely in favor of considering open source software to solve Oregon?s software needs. However, I?m not in favor of mandating open source software, which is what HB 2892 does.By putting up artificial barriers to entry for closed source software, Oregon is narrowing their choices to those rare cases when open source software lives up to the letter of the requirements for a Request for Proposal (RFP) but doesn?t provide the same level of thoroughness that competing for money on the open market requires. This narrowing of choice is going to cost Oregon considerable additional funds in support, training and documentation, all things that the open source community lives without because of their own level of expertise. Continuing the analogy, assembling your own electric guitar if fun for an enthusiast, but requires very specialized skills. Likewise, using, supporting and maintaining open source software requires real engineering skills, which is the hidden cost you don?t see when initially installing open source software.
In addition to mandating open source software, HD 2892 calls for open data exchange standards. This is something that I?m very much in favor of. The latest and most general purpose standard for open data exchange is called the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and is fully embraced by both the open source and the closed source communities. However, it?s the closed source vendors, like Microsoft, IBM and BEA, that are really making XML a reality by pushing it into their software at all levels. In fact, these same closed source vendors as going beyond just XML and building standards for communicating data between computers based on open source and closed source operating systems to make sure that all computers can communicate with each other. These standards are called ?web services? and are based around the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Defining, implementing and testing standards is an expensive proposition involving man-decades of dedicated engineering work, which is why it takes companies that make money on software to turn them from an adolescent dream into an adult reality.
I believe that open source should absolutely be considered for the state’s software needs. However, being open source is but one quality that needs consideration. Things that also need to be considered include the cost of training, documentation, support, upgrading and maintaining software systems and their support for open data standards. Some open source software will achieve the level of functionality and attention to detail that Oregon needs, but artificially narrowing your choices to open source software is like open picking high school bands to play at the Rose Garden. Sometimes you’ll get lucky but more often the audience is going to demand a refund.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Chris Sells
Wednesday, Apr 2, 2003, 9:02 AM
MSDN RSS!
Here. From Sergey Simakov: MSDN now have official RSS (from Tim Ewald)
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2003, 4:18 PM
Upgrading Windows 2000 Domains to Windows Server 2
Here. From Bob Job: He you cuold find usefull information in order to, Provide administrators, consultants, and support professionals with a framework for upgrading Microsoft® Windows® 2000 domains to Windows® Server 2003 and identify best practices and known issues to reduce downtime during the upgrade.
Monday, Mar 31, 2003, 2:58 PM in .NET
Great .net resources article
From Mitch Gallant: Chris, Great article on .net resources at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnforms/html/winforms02202003.asp The MSDN articles are rather confusing on resources, but your article clarifies a lot. Here is an easy to use drag/drop utility to view any assembly resources: http://pages.istar.ca/~neutron/ViewResources/
Saturday, Mar 29, 2003, 11:34 AM
Windows Server 2003 Available to MSDN Subscribers
From Keith Wedinger: Windows Server 2003 is now available for MSDN Subscribers to download. It was posted by Microsoft on March 26th.
Friday, Mar 28, 2003, 7:59 PM
Windows XP Media Center Edition Available
Here. For MSDN Universal subscribers, Windows XP Media Center Edition is available for download! This is huge for me because I've had a PC attached to my stereo/TV for years, but no apps to run it with. *Finally* MS decided to let folks get MCE w/o buying a whole new PC. Wahoo!
Thursday, Mar 27, 2003, 3:38 AM in .NET
C# Futures
Here. From Andrew Webb: from Don Box's spoutlet
Thursday, Mar 20, 2003, 10:49 AM
IE Tools for Validating XML & Viewing XSLT Output
Here. From Andrew Webb: Version 3 ? I never heard of them before!
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2003, 6:16 PM
Let Scriptomatic Write WMI Script For You
Here. I learned more about what WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is and what it's for in 5 minutes running the Scriptomatic tool than anything I'd seen or read before. Plus, it's a great little ad hoc admin tool. Very cool.
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2003, 10:13 AM in .NET
Design-Time WinForms Component Integration, part 1
Here. Part 1 of 2 of Michael and my treatment of integrating WinForms components and controls into VS.NET.
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2003, 8:09 AM
Exchange Disk I/O
Here. From Michael Box: Since its release in 1996, Microsoft Exchange has depended upon the I/O subsystem for its high performance and availability. While the storage industry progresses significantly with innovative solutions, there are key concepts you must understand if you want a successful and durable Exchange server deployment. Windows .NET, performance, backup techniques, and technology reviews such as Storage Area Networks and Network Attached Storage, are the main aspects of this session. With more than six years of experience in this field, the presenters put these aspects into the perspective of Exchange 2000's own requirements and dependencies. This is essential for IT administrators and decision makers to make the right choices and investments for their Exchange rollout!