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Users of the new Novell

Part of my job is to support local MySQL User Groups. I also started a local one in my own town of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is a good exercise to not only work on the macro level but also see the little details.

A few months ago I discovered Novell Users International (formerly NetWare Users International) and contacted the meeting co-ordinator (John Glennie) of the group near me (SEQNUG).
In case you didn’t know, any NetWare 6.5 and higher contains MySQL Server (commercially licensed even!)

Anyway, he was very interested in having me do a talk about MySQL, and this happened yesterday evening. It was at the Novell offices in town, and I was made very welcome by a small but dedicated group including someone from Novell.

I gave a broad overview of MySQL, MySQL AB, how we make money, current and upcoming MySQL features, etc. The big picture. Of course there were lots of excellent questions, and the meeting organiser tells me that he got favourable feedback afterwards.

So who are these groups? Essentially the original NetWare users, around here mostly educational institutions. With Novell’s acquisition of SuSE Linux and Ximian, and the inclusion of Apache, MySQL and PHP since NetWare 6.5, Open Source has found its way in – and I understand they are loving it.

Do see if you can find a local group on the NUI site, and perhaps visit their next meeting? You may be able to teach them more about MySQL and AMP programming, but they can sure tell you a thing or two about how to run a good (secure) network 😉

Enjoy!

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