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What isn't mentioned is that this would probably ruin many small businesses who depend on open-source software because they can't afford large expensive distributions such as Oracle

Yeah, because no other similiar solutions exists. Right?

You're a troll. PostgreSQL has all this and more (you can even develop stored database procedures in PHP). Enterprise features? They are there (funded by companies such as Fujitsu who care about enterprise). Ease of administration? Compare how you add an user to mysql vs. pgsql.

Visit http://www.postgresql.org/ for more.

How did you get here?

slashdot. ORG

That was brought to you by PostgreSQL, as with all other .org or .info lookups.

The fact is, there is a lot of heavy commercial use of both databases. With public involvement/use from companies like Fujitsu, Sun, the American Chemical Society, BASF, the National Weather Service, U.S. Dept. of State, and many more, PostgreSQL does not have anything to prove over MySQL any more.

http://www.postgresql.org/about/users

There is no shortage of companies supporting PostgreSQL: http://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_sup port_northamerica

Besides, who would you trust not to disappear next week, MySQL AB, or say, Sun?

Or, you know, PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org/) which is a far better database than MySQL by most measures, and much closer to Oracle in terms of features and performance (and even PL/SQL compatibility to a limited extent in the form of PL/PGSQL).

It is interesting that they are purchasing companies that almost fully control the software but give it away free as open source: Sleepycat, JBoss, and Zend. Oracle's purchase months ago of InnoDB used by MySQL was a similar move. What they are _not_ getting involved in is software that is community controlled, like PostgreSQL or Linux, because it much harder to see how a purchase would allow tight control of the software, resulting in revenue.

Whoever you paid for your commercial MySQL or PostgreSQL support contract, of course.

There are many Oracle, SQL Server and DB2 specialists on the market.

So your contention is that a high rate of turnover in the support of those applications is good?

As an early adopter of software you take on the risk while others (including competitors) learn from your mistakes.

MySQL and PostgreSQL were publically released 11 and 17 years ago, respectively. If that's your idea of "early adopter", then may I also suggest other hip new technologies you might wish to investigate, such as TCP/IP, VGA graphics, and transistor-based memory?

> Then I guess the only big thing is, who do you go to if there is a major problem?

Here (http://www.bizgres.org/) or here (http://www.commandprompt.com/) or here (http://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_su pport) perhaps?

There is replication (master to multiple slave) for POstgresql, see slony1 , or google for commercial replication and clustering solutions for postgresql

But let me know when I can download thousands of pirated games that run on Mac OS X.

Also, someone please let him know when he can download thousands of anti-spyware/trojan/virus packages to run with his pirated games.

Or let me know when I can run SQL Server 2000 or something comparable in power and flexibility on Mac OS X.

Ummm... okay, here's Oracle for OS X. Or maybe you prefer Sybase Adaptive Enterprise Server? Or if you want something free, but enterprise quality there's PostgreSQL. Or something free, flexible and fast that's decent enough to power slashdot there's mysql.

SQL Server is decent for small to medium-sized databases, but you're not going to be handling tables mesured in gigabytes in SQL server like in sybase, db2, or oracle. Not unless Microsoft really puts a lot more work into SQL Server and the memory management of Windows itself.

Yeah, BSD licenses sure have killed a lot of projects.
That's just five minutes of searching for BSD licensed projects, I didn't look for MIT licensed projects.

And what about PostgreSQL? It should fare very well.

Indeed. In fact, tests in the past showed postgres was a better choice over mysql. But don't take my word, compare it yourself with those in the article...

http://www.postgresql.org/

1. Your comments are very Oracle specific. You only show why stored procedures/triggers are bad with Oracle, not in principle. And I believe the right to disable triggers can be managed in Oracle too, just to name one flaw.

2. I also suggested using Postgres' extensible type mechanism to create a new field type that implements an encrypted field. This new type can be used as declarative as in Oracle. After the initial work (which can be outsourced) there is no procedural programming to be done.

CREATE TYPE MY3DES ...

CREATE TABLE secretstuff (
    INT id PRIMARY KEY,
    MY3DESTYPE secret )

PG Manual: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/sql -createtype.html

3. Nitpick: The ALTER TABLE command is not "declarative", it is a Data Definition/Alteration command and quite procedural. SQL is not purely declarative. INSERT, UPDATE are procedural too, in a different way. I agree SQL is quite high level, and obscures the actual low level algorithms used by automatically selecting optimal ones, but nonetheless there are procedural elements.

4. You probably only know MySQL, your last paragraph shows this. Forget treating PostgreSQL and MySQL as equal. Read up on Postgres. It is much closer to Oracle than to MySQL. I don't want to disparage MySQL here, these 2 open source DBs have very different audiences and that was my original point.

http://www.postgresql.org/

I won't reply after this, because I think we are repeating arguments and the whole point is moot -- if data needs to be encrypted "at rest", I'd do this at volume level (encrypted block devices) where the data is stored, completely independant of DB apps.

1. Your comments are very Oracle specific. You only show why stored procedures/triggers are bad with Oracle, not in principle. And I believe the right to disable triggers can be managed in Oracle too, just to name one flaw.

2. I also suggested using Postgres' extensible type mechanism to create a new field type that implements an encrypted field. This new type can be used as declarative as in Oracle. After the initial work (which can be outsourced) there is no procedural programming to be done.

CREATE TYPE MY3DES ...

CREATE TABLE secretstuff (
    INT id PRIMARY KEY,
    MY3DESTYPE secret )

PG Manual: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/sql -createtype.html

3. Nitpick: The ALTER TABLE command is not "declarative", it is a Data Definition/Alteration command and quite procedural. SQL is not purely declarative. INSERT, UPDATE are procedural too, in a different way. I agree SQL is quite high level, and obscures the actual low level algorithms used by automatically selecting optimal ones, but nonetheless there are procedural elements.

4. You probably only know MySQL, your last paragraph shows this. Forget treating PostgreSQL and MySQL as equal. Read up on Postgres. It is much closer to Oracle than to MySQL. I don't want to disparage MySQL here, these 2 open source DBs have very different audiences and that was my original point.

http://www.postgresql.org/

I won't reply after this, because I think we are repeating arguments and the whole point is moot -- if data needs to be encrypted "at rest", I'd do this at volume level (encrypted block devices) where the data is stored, completely independant of DB apps.

Here is a suggestion: the PosgreSQL project.

We'd love to see some benchmarks run on this equipment. It's a great chance for us to evaluate and boost postgresql performance in general. Can you contact us directly? You can find a subscription link here: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/ as well as the thread regarding your ask slashdot question here: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2 005-11/msg00514.php

We'd love to see some benchmarks run on this equipment. It's a great chance for us to evaluate and boost postgresql performance in general. Can you contact us directly? You can find a subscription link here: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/ as well as the thread regarding your ask slashdot question here: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2 005-11/msg00514.php

Well... MySQL *is* a toy system. Yes, Access is even worse, and it's not like MySQL doesn't have its uses; but any database that will silently alter data you're inserting into a table if it doesn't fit the specified constraints instead of returning an error is unusable for serious work.

If you want a good database, why not look into PostgreSQL?

Pick your flavour ...

http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/xpsql/projdisp lay.php

or

http://www.throwingbeans.org/tech/postgresql_and_x ml.html

Try future developments in body armor, engineering, acoustics, propulsion and search algorithms on for size. All of those disparate fields have been influenced and guided by cross-polination from bioscience and ignoring or even worse, rejecting a scientific understanding of the world will only hold us back.

One concrete example: PostgreSQL uses genetic algorithms. If the process of evolution didn't work, some databases would fall over.

The people who claim that evolution is viable but didn't actually happen, I can tolerate. From a philosophical point of view, even scientists should agree that it's possible (e.g. the world could have sprung into existence ten seconds ago, complete with false memories, etc, and we'd have no way of knowing). The people who come out with nonsense like "evolution is too random to work" are about as ignorant as you can get, because there are things that just plain wouldn't work if their claims were true.

I don't have a HT-capable proc (AMD Athlon XP 1700), so I don't know anything from personal experience.

I decided to check out how PostgreSQL did with HT.

The first link (1) was suggesting to someone--who was having performance problems under FreeBSD--to turn off HT. Of course, that may not be related to PostgreSQL itself, but rather FreeBSD. I really don't know.

The next thing I found showed some mixed results with ext2 under Linux (2). Somethings showed gain with HT, but not others.

Another link (3) commented that HT with Java requires special consideration when coding.

I didn't come up with anything useful under PostgreSQL, so I checked out Linux.

According to Linux Electrons, Linux performance can drop without proper setup.

One of our staff got really good at destroying Linux filesystems. Every variety was highly vulnerable; she'd pull one of the fibrechannel connections, and watch the systems fall down. Some of the problems were pretty nicely replicable on the Dell 6600 series on various media...

The thing I'd hope to get with Sun hardware + OS is actually two things:

• Firstly, I'd expect not to be getting Dell's "cruddy hardware of the week." Check anywhere: You'll find it deprecated. Google for dell postgresql performance and the first link you're likely to see is Hardware for best performance which quotes someone I work with :-).

  The Dell stuff has a history of underperforming compared to other hardware with apparently similar specs. It appears that their habit of buying whatever the hardware manufacturers are remaindering this week applies about as much to servers as to desktops, and the results suck.

• Secondly, hopefully Solaris plays a bit better than Linux as far as behaviour of filesystems under stress goes.

  We discovered with the fibrechannel situation that if you lose a cable or power, Linux has a habit of scribbling on things, thereby destroying data. Oops, if that was an important database, you're in trouble.

  I'm no raving BSD-o-Phile; my name is not Dave Gilbert; I use, and like, Linux plenty. Unfortunately, reliability in this area is something that is lacking. AIX played way better; that's what we're using, even though I'd rather put burning needles in my eyes than spend the day coding on AIX. (I don't even want to talk about shared libs on AIX... Ghack...)

Actually, there is a project for this ... the PL/mono project.
It's a bit stalled at the moment, though. Maybe you could help out?

One may need to insert a large amount of data when first populating a database. This section contains some suggestions on how to make this process as efficient as possible.

http://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_hos ting

A list of webhosts that support pgsql.

Multi Master PostgreSQL: http://pgcluster.projects.postgresql.org/

And with RubyForge getting up past 3.5M records now

E.1.2. Migration to version 8.1

A dump/restore using pg_dump is required for those wishing to migrate data from any previous release.

(Note - some content cross posted from the recent MSSQL2005 posting I made)

I take issue with the number of tools.

Postgresql has a great variety of tools, both OSS and commercial that work great. I've been working on an updated list of all the tools. Here are a few of the most popular admin tools:

PGadminIII
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger [sqlmanager.net]

DBvisualizer
http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/ [www.minq.se]

EMS Postgresql Manager
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger [sqlmanager.net]

PHPpgadmin
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppgadmin [sourceforge.net]

Sybase Power Designer
http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling/ powerdesigner [sybase.com]

ERWIN data modeller
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=260 [ca.com]

CASE Studio 2
http://www.casestudio.com/enu/default.aspx [casestudio.com]

Postgresql has a vibrant tool community. If you want more info on Postgresql tools see
http://techdocs.postgresql.org/v2/Guides/PostgreSQ L%20GUI%20Tools/document_view [postgresql.org]

You can check that almost instantly by reading the release notes. Scroll down to "E.1.2. Migration to version 8.1"

Just use the RHEL version for your CentOS version

http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/binary/v8.1.0/linux/ rpms/redhat/

Ingres. Here

Mysql Here

Postgresql Here

Firebird Here

Is there a distinction in the hyphonization or ALLCAPS between "full-text" and "FULLTEXT" that has you concerned?

Or is it simply the case that not every odd index type (fuzzy, array, text, spatial, etc) is built-in in the default ./configure options. IMHO that's a feature rather than a bug -- because that way people who used one of the other full-text engines like this one built on inverted trees rather than GiST indexes can do so.

Is there a distinction in the hyphonization or ALLCAPS between "full-text" and "FULLTEXT" that has you concerned?

Or is it simply the case that not every odd index type (fuzzy, array, text, spatial, etc) is built-in in the default ./configure options. IMHO that's a feature rather than a bug -- because that way people who used one of the other full-text engines like this one built on inverted trees rather than GiST indexes can do so.

Most handle it by giving you the view of the data before the other user started to modify it. The person who is editing's edits do not show until all of the edit is finished.

Postgres docs actually have a chapter on this: Concurrency Control. Like most high-end databases Postgres can handle this situation in different ways, depending on how it is set up...

A database should never tell you that the data is not avalible. It should always give you the best version of the data it has.

pgAdmin III bundled tool is 1.4 - I think I was using 1.3 last time I installed. Visually it looks a bit nicer - I'm assuming they've fixed some bugs or something similar to warrant a number change. :)

1.3 was the development series for 1.4, the new stable release as of yesterday. There are a heap of new features over 1.2 (which shipped with PostgreSQL 8.0) - see http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.419 for details.

The URL for the release notes in the story should be: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/rel ease.html#RELEASE-8-1

You're going to get instantly modded down for asking about a Windows installer without mentioning how you use Linux at home/work/other.

However, I predict that the person who provides a link will be modded up as insightful

Slashdot mods are fickle
http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/binary/v8.1.0/win32/

When are they going to fix the inherit bug? The one described on the bottom of this page:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/ddl -inherit.html

It is to bad that objects does not work yet.

Found it!

http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/binary/v8.1.0/win32/ is the link.

Clicking the '8.1' link on the 'new releases' section on the front page takes you to the 'source' files only. That was the problem I had!

Postgresql have a lot of information on there site about tools and interfaces that can be used with postgresql.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/interfaces

I myself have also written a reporting and forms component for postgresql.
Forms: http://www.treshna.com/bond
Reporting: http://www.treshna.com/papyrus

In time postgrseql will have as rich a toolset as mysql as more developers make there software support multiple SQL databases.

PostgreSQL (note the play on words, "post" gres comes after "in" gres) descends from the follow-up project which extended relational concepts into an early "object-relational" system. Stonebreaker lays out his goals for the Postgres project in this 1986 paper.

So, Ingres is based on an older design that PostgreSQL. It has also spent 20 years in the corporate world being changed, upgraded, and improved, so evaluating it based on its lineage is like evaluating Oracle 10g based on your knowledge of Oracle 1.0. Interesting historical note: one of Oracle's first substantial competitors (and an early market leader) was a company called "Relational Technologies" that sold a cutting edge relational database named... Ingres.

This must be in satire, or ignorance.

Postgresql has a great variety of tools, both OSS and commercial that work great. I've been working on an updated list of all the tools. Here are a few of the most popular admin tools:

PGadminIII
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger

DBvisualizer
http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/

EMS Postgresql Manager
http://www.sqlmanager.net/products/postgresql/mana ger

PHPpgadmin
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppgadmin

Sybase Power Designer
http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling/ powerdesigner

ERWIN data modeller
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=260

CASE Studio 2
http://www.casestudio.com/enu/default.aspx

Postgresql has a vibrant tool community. If you want more info on Postgresql tools see
http://techdocs.postgresql.org/v2/Guides/PostgreSQ L%20GUI%20Tools/document_view

> every dollar invested in OSS which leads to publicly released
> code is a dollar whose benefit will last long beyond any potential
> demise of the original VC group and/or development team.

Well said sir. And that's as opposed to those huge corporate systems on which armies slave for years - and then are unceremoniously dumped.

The beauty of it, too, is that a company can have a closed source product and still contribute to open projects. Running a backend database? Contribute something to PostgreSQL. Running a web server? Answer questions about Apache. Coding a propriety Java app? Buy a book on an open source Java code quality tool. :-)

For those DBs that use autogenerated field types (i.e., SERIAL in PostGres, AUTOINC attribute in many others) getting the generated ID for the record you inserted is...problematic at best.

For Postgres, this is patently false. You can get the value of a sequence (serial) either before or after your INSERT.

"... I always come up against limitations that I can't live with..."

May I ask, what features do you need that aren't in SQLite or PostgreSQL?

Another question: I wonder if the free version of Oracle will work with Compiere ERP + CRM, at least for testing?

Here is a Comparison of Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL DBMS.

ZDNet article: Oracle to offer free database.

I was not able to find the list of limitations on the Oracle web site. Anyone?

There's just one problem. This perception of the software-as-services model is a jaundiced misrepresentation of the way that on-demand applications actually work. No on-demand customer pays simply for the privilege of accessing the software. They pay because the software delivers business results. And that simple distinction exposes once and for all the clay feet, the emperor's new clothes, of the traditional applications software industry. Their products don't actually work until they've been tweaked and customized by customers or partners, and therefore the licence of itself has no out-of-the-box value to the end user. Asking people to pay for the privilege of using the software isn't offering a service, it's taking a liberty. It's as much of a nonsense as asking a punter to pay a performance fee for whistling a copyrighted tune. If I'm paying a fee to watch a movie, listen to a song, or use an application, I expect to experience a professional, finished execution.

True on-demand application vendors understand this. Conventional software vendors seem to think the world still owes them a living, just for bothering to write some software.


This article sounds as if the guy was jaded from the start. His complaints are similar to those people who first scoffed at the notion of leasing a car instead of buying it. Some may consider it foolish, but some also see the benefits. In my experience you can lease a car for 12 months, have the "owner" of the car (or software) continually maintain it when it needs it.

Don't read too deeply in on that analogy, please.

But BOTHERING to write some software? By us Bothering to write some software you have some of the best software out there that's been used to secure most of the IT infrastructure the world runs on. Apache, The Linux Kernel, The Various BSD's, SQL Databases, Iptables, SNORT IDS software, OpenSSL, and many many more!

This guy is just trolling. The article is slanted because he believes that once written, any bugs, flaws (as in it doesn't do this the _way_ it should for ME) should all be done for free simply because he or general consumers are greedy. To a point, bug fixes should be fixed like glaring security flaws that could be used to take over your computer (ala windows in general, yes I'm biased) or damage your information etc.

But get real. If you paid ONCE for your anti-virus software and expected it to work flawlessly and capture all viruses, worms etc without having to pay extra every year to maintain that reliability you're just out of your mind. There is no incentive to keep something up for free especially in an evolving industry. One that evolves and almost 2-5 times the normal rate of other industries.

Think of it this way. You pay a subscription service similar to that of an anti-virus vendor. Receive continual updates, bug fixes, serious flaws get fixed for an annual price. This ensures the developers can work and continue to live as well. Why not? If you don't pay for the next years license, you simply don't get major version upgrades (maybe a serious bug fix or service pack) or new "features".

I'm not keen on the idea of keeping your apps on a server/central location, unless it's on my home network and I have the option to install it centrally or on each workstation. It's just foolish to do it that way. But this guy's "it's mine, I want it all forever" after a simple purchase doesn't cut it. Want that new fender or tires? They're better quality than the current tires you have, then pay for them. Don't expect it for free buddy.

This guy really pissed me off. And I have a football game to watch.

of the most advanced, most ANSI compliant SQL database around. Runs on everything from desktops to 'big iron'.

http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v8.0.4/

Here you go.

Qualitywise, MS SQL Server is the IIS of the database world. Only if you somehow got locked into .NET or some other proprietary hook into MS would you need MS SQL over an industry standard like Postgresql or MySQL which are in approximately the same niche. Those two are even starting to nibble at the heels of Oracle in some contexts, unlike MS SQL.

MS has tried give aways before with IIS. People learn their lesson and move on, unless they get locked in. The same goes with SQL databases.

So a purchase price of zero is an advantage, but the main reason people use Apache and the other parts of LAMP is the quality. The price is just gravy.

Postgres 8.1 (currently in Beta) can use multiple indexes per query: http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/rele ase.html#RELEASE-8-1

Allow index scans to use an intermediate in-memory bitmap (Tom)

        In previous releases, only a single index could be used to do lookups on a table. With this feature, if a query has WHERE tab.col1 = 4 and tab.col2 = 9, and there is no multicolumn index on col1 and col2, but there is an index on col1 and another on col2, it is possible to search both indexes and combine the results in memory, then do heap fetches for only the rows matching both the col1 and col2 restrictions. This is very useful in environments that have a lot of unstructured queries where it is impossible to create indexes that match all possible access conditions. Bitmap scans are useful even with a single index, as they reduce the amount of random access needed; a bitmap index scan is efficient for retrieving fairly large fractions of the complete table, whereas plain index scans are not.