Re: Oracle / PostgreSQL comparison...

> http://cglendenningoracle.blogspot.com/2011/06/oracle-vs-postgres-postgresql.html
>
> Any comments?

Amusing.

"
What kind of support is available if we have a problem? What is their
patching schedule to address exploits and known security defects? If
there is a bug, how responsive is the organization to resolving the
issue? These are questions that imply a need to have an organization
behind your technology. In this case, clearly PostgreSQL is not an
appropriate choice, because you won't get acceptable answers to these
questions for any open source software.
"

Um. What? Let's look at this:

"What kind of support is available if we have a problem?" With
PostgreSQL, I can correspond with *the people that wrote the
code*. They're friendly, responsive, and are very reasonable
about looking at possible bugs. Every time I have emailed the
community lists for help, I have received reasonable answers
within a few hours (usually *under* an hour). I've never found
a bug, but I've seen plenty of them squashed, as the developers
themselves admit a mistake and announce a fix.

With Oracle, I get to call in to a call center to open a ticket
to look at the problem to assign it to a support person to return
to the call hours later to assume it's not a bug to maybe file a
problem report to perhaps ignore it for months/years. All for the
low, low price of $XX,000/core, depending on the magic 8-ball
discount or saving throw you roll with the Oracle Sales Army.

With PostgreSQL, it just works. I don't have to spend a day or two
or three adjusting my system to hell and high water, including
symlinking libraries back and forth, ignoring system patches that
"interfere" with Oracle. Interfere? I'm sorry? You're an *APP*
on *MY* server. *I* do not serve *you*, Larry.

It's also obvious that the author has never even looked at the
commercial support available for PostgreSQL, for so much less money.

Am I a DBA by profession, to answer these questions authoritatively?
No, I am a hobbyist DBA for my own uses, and I manage servers for
DBAs. But it doesn't take an expert to see that the author of this
article has likely become too comfortable working for companies that
enjoy paying a half million dollars for licensing a couple of
database servers that could be done with PostgreSQL (assuming
application support, of course) for a tenth of that cost (hardware
included).

Thank you, PostgreSQL folks. I love your software and appreciate your
great support.

Benny

--
"You were doing well until everyone died."
-- "God", Futurama