Re: Are we losing momentum?

Dann Corbit wrote:
> There are clearly places where PostgreSQL does have a distinct
> advantage. Price a 1000 user system for SQL*Server and PostgreSQL and
> you will see that we can hire a couple of DBA's just for the price
> difference. Since you can purchase PostgreSQL support, that is no
> longer a significant advantage for MS.

Start looking at "Enterprise" licenses for any of the big guys and the
pricing does get pretty scary.

> And about MySQL: It's also commercial. You are not supposed to use it
> except for a single machine for personal use unless you are a
> non-profit organization or unless absolutely everything you do is
> GPL[1].

On the one hand, if they are calling it "Open Source", then this is NOT
a fair statement.

On the other hand, if you look at their web site, they certainly do tip
their hat to the FUD/Paranoia about the "infectiveness" of the GPL.

They don't expressly say:
"Yes, you should be paranoid about the GPL because it infects anything
it ever touches with some frightening license virus worse than SARS."

Instead, they loudly use the line "... for users who prefer not to be
restricted by the terms of the GPL", of course, neither confirming or
denying any particular paranoia about what the impact of those terms may
or may not be.

> Hence, you have to license it to deploy applications. In order to
> have transactions, you have to use another commercial product that
> they bolt into MySQL -- Sleepycat software's database. Now you have
> two license systems to worry about.

Incorrect. You have to use another commercial product that they bolt
onto MySQL -- InnoDB, from the Norwegian company, Innobase.
<http://www.innodb.com/>

Sleepycat DB was used to prototype the notion of having transactions,
but since that introduces Yet Another Continent to the set of licensing
complications, and probably wasn't sufficiently 'in their interests,'
it's not the Preferred Transactional Engine...
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