Just Uber

Do you ever have one of those days when no matter what you try, you just can’t get a web application to work? I suffered the angst of this recently when trying to install SugarCRM 5 on a Plesk based shared hosting server.

No matter what I tried, in step 2 of the installation process I got an error about the writable session save path not being valid. I checked the path in the /etc/php.ini file, created a php test page using phpinfo() and checked that the php session location was writable. Still, the installer brought up the same error message.

Finally I resorted to hacking the install script. I thought I’d share the hack with you here just in case you suffer the same error as I! Open up the install/installSystemCheck.php file. Check out the example below, and notice that seventh line from the bottom, I have changed the variable $error_found = true; to $error_found = false;

That should move you onto install step 2.

// session save dir
$session_save_path = session_save_path();
if (strpos ($session_save_path, “;”) !== FALSE)
$session_save_path = substr ($session_save_path, strpos ($session_save_path, “;”)+1);
if(is_dir($session_save_path)){
if(is_writable($session_save_path)){
installLog(”Session Save Path is “.$session_save_path);
}else{
$save_pathStatus = “<b><span class=’stop’>{$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_WRITABLE']}</font></b>”;
installLog(”ERROR:: {$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_WRITABLE']}”);
$error_found = true;
$error_txt .= ‘
<tr>
<td><strong>’.$mod_strings['LBL_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH'].’</strong></td>
<td class=”error”>’.$save_pathStatus.’</td>
</tr>’;
}
}else{
$save_pathStatus = “<b><span class=’stop’>{$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_SET']}</font></b>”;
installLog(”ERROR:: {$mod_strings['ERR_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH_NOT_SET']}”);
$error_found = false;
$error_txt .= ‘
<tr>
<td><strong>’.$mod_strings['LBL_CHECKSYS_SESSION_SAVE_PATH'].’</strong></td>
<td class=”error”>’.$save_pathStatus.’</td>
</tr>’;
}

I just read this on Slashdot and wondered what people thought of this seemingly bizarre move from MS?

After campaigning for OOXML so vigorously, MS have now announced that they will be issuing an update to Office 2007 to add support for OASIS ODF 1.1.

This won’t be available as the default format for saving, but even so - making support available for ODF and not supporting OOXML (that won’t come until a future version) must fatally damage OOXML as a standard.

Hopefully the delay in OOXML support and the emergance of ODF support as standard in an MS Office suite will herald new support by the public sector for the ODF format.

Who knows, the next time you visit your favorite government website you might be able to grab a copy of taxreturn.odt

OK, imagine if you will, that I suddenly developed uber programming skills and coded a great application for - lets say - keeping track of properties in an estate agency.

At this point I’m faced with a couple of choices (but please add more if you think of any):

1) Provide my software under a proprietary licence, charging my customer for both the software and my support of the software

2) Provide my software under an open-source licence, giving away the source code for free, but selling my support to the customer

At this point hypothetical software vendor Chris (much to freedom loving Chris’s disappointment) leans towards model 1. In this way I keep the source code of my uber application and corner the estate agent market.

As an advocate (albeit user of) open source software, my internal freedom loving Chris urges me to learn what the business benefits (to the vendor) of the open-source licensing model are.

Can anyone steer me in the right direction?