Blogging Roller

Mike Swaine in Dr. Dobb's Journal: But employee blogs are turning out to be a good place to go to track what's really going on. When Sun partnered with the University of Kent on the NetBeans IDE/BlueJ Edition, Ian Utting of U Kent vlogged in Sun's blog space about this beginner's Java tool. Incensed by rumors that Java doesn't work on Windows Vista, Sun's Chet Haase blogged to the contrary. And, responding to a high-news-value development, CEO Jonathan Schwartz links to YouTube video of Jonathan and Sun's Chief Technologist Greg Papadopoulos on Oracle's decision to fork Linux. (Hey, that's Jonathan's choice of words, not mine.)

And maintaining a place for ex-employees to blog is either brilliant or loony. My guess is, brilliant.

• OpenSolaris distributions show promise | eWeek
  "these distributions point to intriguing new directions for Solaris"
• New file system boosts the already excellent Solaris 10 | eWeek
  "One of the most impressive things about ZFS is how easy it is to use"
• Sun narrows loss significantly | InfoWorld
  "Stronger sales of its Solaris 10 operating system helped..."
  
  
• blojsom/Google Maps template mashup
  "You're looking at blog entries 'rendered' on a map of the earth"
  
  
• Open-Source Portal Initiative at Sun, Part 1: Overview
  Overview of plans to transition Sun's portal server to an open source project at Java.Net
• Open-Source Portal Initiative at Sun, Part 2: Portlet Repository
  Overview of Open Source Portlet Repo, which includes RSS feed viewing and blog editing portlets
  
  
• The dictator's free cookie day?
  Opening Move podcast with Simon Phipps, David Van Couvering and yours truly
  
  
• Wiley::Professional Apache Geronimo
  by Bruce "this one time, at band camp" Snyder, Jeff Gerender and Sing Li
• RSS and Atom in Action: Newsfeed Formats
  Excerpts from Chapter 4 of RSS and Atom in Action, at WebReference.com

Lots of reading material on rules or lack of rules for blogging today.

First, some posts about Tim Bray's use of the F-word in a blog about Sun's new Project Blackbox. My take on the F-word? It's good and I use it, but I haven't had the guts or the reason to use it on my blog (although I have posted quotes that include the word). I'm with Scoble on this one: when somebody like Tim says something is F-ing cool, then I sit up and take notice.

• Can a corporate blogger use the "F-word?"
  Scoble: "I paid attention to that new product launch BECAUSE of Tim's language"
• Tim's Bomb
  Douglas: "If you believe [free speech laws] carry over to your corporate blog, then we disagree."
• The F-bomb: never cool
  Robertson: "when you use coarse language, there's no upside. That's right - none."
• Oh My Goodness Gracious
  Bray: "I'm sincerely sorry. But that's really what I'm like."

Sun VP Dave Douglas' point about corporate vs. personal blogs seems valid, but as Douglas points out, it's not clear whether Tim's blog personal or corporate. Tim's posts are included on the front page of blogs.sun.com through the magic of aggregation (actually, only the first sentence or two). Do we need to add a bad language filter to the aggregator? Should Tim and other externally hosted Sun bloggers provide a safe-for-Sun feed for our aggregator that includes only polished professional posts?

And second, some links from Raleigh News and Observer's Sunday feature on blogging, which included articles by Triangle blogging mavens Ruby Sinreich and Anton Zuiker:

• Raleigh News and Observer: Rules to blog by
  Sunday feature on blogging, rules, ethics and journalism
• When blogging, face the conversation
  by local blogger Anton Zuiker, published in the Raleigh News and Observer
• Moving past the "blogs versus journalism" debate
  by local blogger Ruby Sinreich, published in the Raleigh News and Observer

On this day one year ago I was raving about my first week at Sun. If I had the energy to write a long retrospective blog entry, I'd brag about Will Snow's amazing team, all the Roller revs we've shipped, speaking at JavaOne, winning the chairman's award, and Roller's ongoing move to Apache, but I don't. I'm completely drained by a day of documentation work and two hours of flash-cards with my 7-year-old. So I'll just say this: I love working at Sun.

That's where I'm going today. I'll be working at blogs.sun.com HQ from Monday through Wednesday.

There is a interesting discussion of what should be allowed on a Java.Net weblog in the comments of Richard Monson-Haefel's post 9 of Clubs Seeks a new Deck of Cards. Richard needs a job and is using his weblog to do a little self-promotion/marketing, but his weblog is hosted on Sun's Java.Net site which suppoosedly restricts marketing. Java.Net's managing editor Daniel Steinberg raised this issue, mainly as a discussion point, and thankfully the consensus seems to be in favor of allowing Richard's post and others like it.

Last year, I criticized what I saw as forced corporate blogging on Java.Net, but the open spirit on the Java.Net weblogs, Sun's progressive new Policy on Public Discourse, and the Sun employee blogs at blogs.sun.com, show that Sun trusts it's employees to communicate publicly and directly with each other, with Java developers, and with customers. As a long-time Java developer and small-time Sun shareholder, I see this as a very good thing.