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Red Hat DB = PostgreSQL - Confirmed
WeaselOne writes: "Okay, it's on the record. This Cnet story cites an Aberdeen analyst as confirming that the Red Hat database will, in fact, be PostgreSQL. Also has some interesting stuff about why they didn't just partner with Great Bridge."
If you are expecting money or fame DON'T RELEASE YOUR CODE UNDER THE GPL. Choose another license. Jiminey H. Christmas.
You have no clue why people release code under the GPL do you?
I've been a die-hard PostgreSQL fan for quite some time now, often having to defend my decision to go with a more robust database than the first answer off almost everyone's tongue: MySQL.
I'd like if someone could help clarify what is exactly happenning though. Great Bridge employs half the Postgres developers. They claim to have a "commercially QA-tested" version of Postgres -- what exactly is this? What does it do or not do that the stock PostgreSQL does or does not do? And now along comes Red Hat -- perhaps my least favoured distribution of all -- and says it's going to be packaging PostgreSQL in with their distro, claiming to make enhancements that make it faster with Linux. What exactly are these guys planning? Hopefully not more distro-specific kernels!
Personally I'd love to see anyone come with a way to do an online backup of PostgreSQL's databases. The current favourite is to do a pg_dumpall -o and gzip/bzip2 it out to tape. I really couldn't give a rat's ass if PostgreSQL suddenly had .RPMs to install rather than compile from source but the tighter integration with Linux intriguing. Hopefully it will be done right.
Does anyone have any more information either on what Great Bridge's or Red Hat's versions of PosgreSQL have over the normal releases?
Hmm. In one sentence, he clearly states the point, then in the next, claims he doesn't see it. Odd.
In any case, I doubt "Red Hat Database" is no different from "PostgreSQL". PostgreSQL is an SQL server, whereas Red Hat Database will be a Linux distribution that includes PostgreSQL, among other things. They're not renaming it any more than they're renamed GCC by distributing it in a box marked "Red Hat Linux"...
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Having used both, I think they're both excellent programs. Use whichever is most appropriate for the task at hand. Personally, I've never been a big fan of using tactical nuclear weapons when a flyswatter will do the job. Pointing out that the flyswatter is only a flyswatter won't convince me to stop using it when all I need is a flyswatter...
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
They're website claims that it's not completely new, but is in fact built on top of the Windows 2000 (aka NT) codebase. Which is not surprising since it's the only "real" OS they've ever had. For them to drop it at this point would be, completely, totally, utterly insane...
I'd still rather run OS X -- Apple GUI-ness on the outside, BSD unix on the inside -- yummy...
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Sorry, not enough caffine today...
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Perhaps you might want to look at the J2EE reference implementation, which is free. Right up front in the readme are the 3 supplied drivers - Oracle, Cloudscape and SQL Server v7.0. They've been there for a couple of years at least (1.2 release was middle-late 1999 IIRC). And, being a reference implementation, those drivers have to support the full specication - including XA transaction support. So, the drivers are hardly crap, maybe just not well optimised enough or that the underlying database is crap.
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
People use stuff cos they know the name. The very smart and knowledgable guy at my university who teaches database theory recommended MySQL to some people when they asked him about installing stuff on their own machines. I showed them PostgreSQL and they all agreed it was more feature-filled.
So why did he recommend MySQL? He'd heard of it, and hadn't heard of PostgreSQL.
There is little I've needed PostgreSQL to do that it hasn't done when implementing databases for commercial purposes.
By that logic Red Hat should be selling versions of Windows cos it's more popular.
MySQL has speed advantages in certain conditions, as does PostgreSQL, but Red Hat need features that enable them to compete.
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Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
Not quite.
I recall reading an interview lately with one of the big whigs at Oracle lately. In it, he welcomed this move from Redhat. According to him, it provides and allows for more and more DB users to progress to oracle without haveing used MS. Remember, oracle and MS aren't exactly taking warm showers together in the wee hours of the morning. I wouldn't be suprised to learn of Oracle helping out with the project.
You are correct in that unless PSQL grows in capacity and performance, the sequence would lead users to Oracle. Also, though, as I recall, just ahout all (if not ALL) of the large commercial RDBMS Vendors prohibit the publication of benchmarks, not just Oracle. Last I knew Oracle and MS Both did this.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Err, like Mandrake did with Redhat's distro, except without the financial support?
I was under the impression (yesterday? 2 days ago?) that they would be starting a DB project from scratch. If what I'm saying is correct, why is this fucking steaming pile even being mentioned? All they are going to do is wrap a customized installer around someone else's hard work.
Earth to troll... This is what you're *supposed* to do with open source. Think, you can do the same thing with any of Redhat's GPL code, go ahead. Just give us something more than hot air.
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Yep. And why not call it "Redhat SQL Server?".
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Umm, there's nothing preventing them from selling it under the GPL.
A company I work for may end up selling GPL server software at a decently high price. Companies will pay it. They're used to paying for software.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
To agree with your point, Microsoft and Sybase split in 1993, long before MS-SQL was considered a very successful product. The original MS-SQL was for 16-bit OS/2, and both companies have sunk $millions into development in the 14 or so years since then.
And the arrangement wasn't entirely benificial to just Microsoft. Sybase has made a good business 'upsizing' MS-SQL databases, which was probably their plan to begin with. It's unfortunate that the big RDBMS vendors were unable to produce a very compelling NT product in the years it took Microsoft to get to SQL 7.0.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Hear Hear.
.. Q L". These were technical people, engineers and project managers, so I can't imagine trying to sell a customer on this, even if it did save them $5K over MS-SQL.
The branding point is really critical because, face it, PostgreSQL has really lousy name.
In a largely agnostic development shop, it seemed as if everyone had at least heard of MySQL and had certainly heard of RedHat, but were stumbling over "Post-Gres
"RedHat Database" (or "RHDB") might not be the greatest name either, but it's better than what they've got. (No offense to the Ingres, Post, and SQL people... Maybe change the name back to "Ingres" - some people remember it and it's easy to say)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Just a note about the PHPBuilder.com article. Mysql has a problem with 30 concurrent users. This is a bit different than 30 users. 30 people can be connected at one time and mysql doesn't even sweat ... but when you get 30 concurrent queries, it starts to fall apart.
... if you get all your hits all within 6 hours think low end of the scale ... if it's pretty well spread out across the day, think high end of the scale). As most mysql users point out, mysql isn't meant to be used in super high load situations and this assessment backs that fact up.
For a pretty normal website, 30 concurrent connections can get you 500,000 - 1.5 million hits a day (depending on your traffic patterns
Now, I use mostly postgresql where I work (I need the transaction support and mysql didn't have it at the time). But I thought the current user point should be brought up.
According to RMS, yes, and RMS is GOD.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Maybe for admin. But if you need a quick data entry form, or a quick report ("And please format it nicely, so it will look good. I'd like the company name to be bold, and a bit larger than the rest, and ..."), then a GUI tool is the only way to go.
That's the kind of thing that let Access keep it's market share before they bundled it into MSOffice, and they still had to buy FoxPro.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I think that is mainly learning SQL. Did you leave off the smiley?
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm sure hoping they put a bit of work into a RAD interface. Just Glade, Python, and some decent report writer would be great. For a first stab at the report writer, even an HTML generator would work. Even just this would be a real competitor to MS Access.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The data, not hard at all, it's the database scripts that are difficult, and if they didn't use anything proprietary, nothing's hard about that. It's a pain to convert PL/SQL scripts to other solutions, and there are certain incompatibilities between some products, but they probably have full time database staff. Gotta keep em busy right? You need them on hand, they might as well be working <G>
That said, Pl/SQL is pretty useful stuff, and some of the proprietary database extensions of certain packages can make life easier from certain points of view, that wasn't meant as an affront to any one or any product.
I rarely use MySQL (and use PostgreSQL every day) but I thought the MySQL documentation was pretty good.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
that they should have gone with the inferior product because some day it may do what PostgreSQL does today. OK, whatever...
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
No, now they'll say sorry, never heard of it. But we can install Red Hat Database if you want!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
RedHat and Oracle are not even on speaking terms.
Count the days down that RH 6.2 Enterprise stays on their website.
SuSE 7.1 was the primary Linux porting platform.
Anything from the 9.0 series will not be supported by Oracle Worldwide Support on RH Linux.
It is apparently an ugly falling out. Too bad.
But after the RH 7.0 release - I'd say that they get what they deserve.
Use SuSE.
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Too bad their documentation still sucks. At least Postgres has really good docs.
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The above is not worth reading.
All they are going to do is wrap a customized installer around someone else's hard work.
...
Gee, like they do with the kernel, X, mozilla, samba, kde, and gnome? Like what every distro does? Why should this be any different?
They're adding value to customers who want a DB with support. This is open source, they can do this, and I bet $20 that the Postgre team is happy to be part of the package, since this will expand their market and get more people interested in postgre
Except that they are not forking. Read the article.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
First of all, Great Bridge and Red Hat will not be working together. Red Hat will be putting developers on Postgres, but the companies won't be working together. All explained in the article.
Second, I don't see why Red Hat would keep changes for themselves, even for a short time. They're an opensource company, and to this day they have always released source immediately when their products are released. I don't see why that would change. Their patches might not be accepted by Postgres maintainers, but that's another issue that the future will tell. Even then, I'm confident RHDB will be available in source from day 0.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
Go troll somewhere else.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
Where's the justification for reinventing the wheel?
They are not reinventing the wheel, on the contrary. They are using PostgreSQL as the base, according to the article. They will be putting developers on hacking a version of PostgreSQL (with more features, I suppose) that they can bundle with support and their distribution. If they follow track, their sources will be available from day 0 and patches sent to the PostgreSQL maintainers.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
Because both DB2 and Oracle are available on Linux, but perhaps you don't call them "decent"?
The DB-support on Linux is pretty decent.
PostgreSQL is included in Red Hat Professional Server. PostgreSQL is included in the basic $30 version, and presumably in the $3(?) Cheapbytes version. What is different is the kind of support you have reason to expect at the other end of a phone line. For serious users who want someone interested in their problems at the other end of a phone line, this looks like a pretty sweet deal.
MySQL is not a "better" database. It is a different kind of database. The design goals of MySQL are very different. MySQL is simple, direct, and very fast, but slow readers and updates are a very bad mix. For anything involving slow readers, look at a master-slave setup with the slow readers connecting to the slave, not the master. Benchmarks are pretty well useless since the results depend on the kind of load, not how good the databases are. Personally, I like MySQL, but you do have to code differently for it ("better" (IMNSHO)). Probably if any of the SELECT statements are outside of your control, you want something where slow readers do NOT block updates.
Incidentally, RedHat retains the services of Alan Cox to work on the kernel. They also retain the services of dozens (hundreds?) of other Linux programmers to do work on various pieces of the distro and then release the results of that hard work under the GPL.
...
They're adding value to customers who want a DB with support. This is open source, they can do this, and I bet $20 that the Postgre team is happy to be part of the package, since this will expand their market and get more people interested in postgre
The article seems to support your conclusion:
Bruce Momjian, a Great Bridge employee and one of the six core PostgreSQL developers, also was optimistic. Red Hat's help with the PostgreSQL effort would mean "they're going to put some major resources into PostgreSQL development," he said.
Not a huge suprise here since the original angel investor from Landmark who funded Red Hat is also the angel investor who funded Great Bridge.
In their own words. They're looking to do for databases what Red Hat did for Linux.
Given all of that, is it really any surprise?
http://www.bullnet.com
People will claim that MySQL is faster, but IMO, if my application is important enough that it requires speed, it's important enough to warrant Postgres.
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I pronounce it post-greh-squeal since I believe that the best way to pronounce SQL is not sequel or ess-cue-ell, but squeal. Try it, you'll like it.
..wayne..
Yeah, having name recognition is crucial in the DB mindspace. But don't think that Oracle or DB2 will give up the Linux side, especially the latter. With Bill G still the richest man and Oracle's head honcho down to fourth, there's still vengeance to be wrecked upon MSFT.
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Guess I'll have to learn Postgres now
Will in Seattle
God, that's about as annoying as "ogg vorbis" to try to pronounce and just as difficult to sell to your PHB without having him stumble all over the name next time it comes up in conversation.
Think I'm kidding? Microsoft didn't name everything "Word", "Office", "Publisher", etc by accident. Open source efforts more aimed at the enterprise really do need to rethink their naming strategies - your name is usually your most powerful marketing tool, so make it good.
How to pronounce it: http://postgresql.planetmirror.com/postgresql.wavo cs/7.1/admin/history.html
- and -
Full background from the mid 80's to today: http://postgresql.planetmirror.com/users-lounge/d
>SQL Server is practically the defacto standard already in any mid-range or even department ....
>database. MS is gutting them from the ground up. IT managers still have the all ms craze of 5
>years ago and Oracle/sun or db2/as400 is pretty expensive and is used for large operations and is
>slower in midrange use. This is why Oracle bans the use of benchmarks. Sql Server is serious
>competition and is getting better. Sql
I'm sorry, but that is not the reason why Oracle does not allow third parties to perform and
publish benchmarks.
It is true that SQL Server performs well at the low end, but your implication that Oracle is
afraid of a comparison is wrong. Oracle *does* publish benchmarks, which can be directly compared
again the same SQL Server benchmarks. This is the reason why the TPC exists.
Oracle do not allow third parties to perform the benchmarks because they will not be fair, as the
required setup to get the best out of an Oracle database is quite complex. Also, Oracle have some
non-documented init.ora parameters which can be used to enhance the performance in the benchmark.
I worked for Oracle for 6 years. If you feel you have some better inside knowledge then me and
think that I am wrong, then state your reasons and your sources.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
The current version of MySQL supports both atomic operations and transactions - transaction support depends on your table storage format... Please read the documentation (there are several sections on it...)
If MySQL AB reads the user comments in the manual, I'm betting that they will be implementing view and foreign key support soon.
As for a full SQL92 implementation, I think the only major issue remaining is nested SELECTs, right?
I print, therefore I am.
RedHat wants a DB. RedHat likes the GPL. There are good, GPL'd DB's available.
Where's the justification for reinventing the wheel?
oh, i could tell you stories. if you're working at a company as a sql programmer or dba, 9 times out of 10 you can run something like this
"update employee set salary=salary*1.5 where id=yours" without anyone ever even knowing.
Does this mean more than 4 hosting companies worldwide will not say "PostgreSQ-WHAT?" when I ask them about database options?
-Sokie
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Where are the slash-groupies? I distinctly remember being promised slash-groupies!
...but haven't you heard of data warehousing?
http://www.dwinfocenter.org/defined.html
http://www.dwinfocenter.org/casefor.html
And the real reason that RHDB will take off is because it keeps the license police out of your server room, *especially* for stuff like data warehousing. Oracle license police are very real (at least the idea is), and is one of the major reasons we decided against Oracle here at work.
Oracle charges per MhZ, and per CPU, which is a 'license to run' their software. If you want to have a hot backup available... um... just be careful. Running Oracle on two machines is twice as expensive as running it on one. The more you want to do with Oracle, the more you have to pay Oracle, when PostgreSQL or MySQL (packaged in a $999.95 RedHat box, with 90 days support) would be more than adequate for many many tasks.
--Robert
I think the name 'Red Hat' is much more marketable and attractive than PosgreSQL. I too, seriously doubt that RH is thinking of forking the code.
PostgreSQL is PostgreSQL. If they don't intend to fork PostgreSQL, then why give it it's own name (Red Hat Database)? I'm not sure I understand the incentive here.
In the business world, what counts is service, support and reliability. RH is not selling software. They are selling service and expertise. PostgreSQL is a reliable but complex piece of software that requires knowledgeable people to support. That's where RH comes in. I am sure they have hired competent people who can help small to medium size businesses set up and operate their databases. Good move on RH part IMO.
ODBC, ADO, Oledb being de facto standards?!? Not in this world, they don't play even a tiny role. Only some client-side tools use ODBC via a JDBC-ODBC bridge, but such tools are highly discouraged (we rather generate CSV output from websites to push data into Excel, and don't want nor need ODBC. Writing back from a shaky product like Excel into a database of any importance is not allowed anyway). The only things that count are DB2 on the mainframe (with Corba interfaces) and JDBC databases on the rest (some DBI too for Perl). Since SQL Server doesn't provide good JDBC support (and 3rd party JDBC drivers for SQL Server are extremely expensive) it doesn't have a chance. Some smaller projects used SQL Server, but because of difficult integration they must be replaced everywhere (with Oracle, but Postgresql could also be an option).
I'll tell you what IS frightening: a colleague and friend of mine, who graduated electronic engineering and has been programming in C, pascal and assembler, before he became a TCP/IP engineer working on Cisco routers and Linux and *BSD based NDS servers... well, this guy tells me "I had problems installing IPv6 on Linux" I ask "What version?" and he says "Linux version 6.2". And it wasn't a slip of the tongue, it took 5 minutes of dialogue with the dude, to accertain that it was RedHat Linux 6.2.
I like Slackware much, much more, and am sad to see that with these Linux distros it is a "the winner takes it all"-game.
Sigged!
Sorry Redhat but most IT manangers would choose MS in such a situation.
Right now, I doubt very much that Red Hat is aiming for or expects to get "most" IT managers buying their products. What thay _are_ aiming for is to get _more_ IT managers buying their products.
That is something which this development probably will do. I have very little doubt that RH will develop nice happy GUI interfaces etc for configuring RHDB, and that combined with Postgres not being crap, will result in more people using it.
So why PostgreSQL?
Red Hat needed to choose one that existed. Building from scratch, no matter how you look at it, would provide little return on investment.
They had a relationship established, with a group of developers very familiar with the product. Is it the best choice for everything, of course not. Hence the reason we have DB2/2, Oracle, MySQL...
What does Red Hat get out of it?
They have a core group of developers in place today. Zero cost of a learning curve for them and minimal for the developers they add. In addition, they get PR. Red Hat is a public company that is making money. The PR only helps.
What does the Open Source community get?
More dollars invested by someone who can work at it full time. In addition, we do not loose access to other DB choices. The development of MySQL, Oracle, sapDB, etc. will go on regardless of the announcement, either way. This will merely allow focus on this product for the reasons stated above.
To read this as a your SQL's better than mine, degrades quickly back to the NT vs. Linux sport that shows up in some newsgroup about a billion times a day. Many database options are good. Many are good at some things the others are not. I try to equate these choices like cars, we all want to drive different things for different reasons.
I don't see how anyone could have thought that they were going to start something from scratch. As for their choice of what to package, I believe it's excellent for all those involved, including those who will never use the redhad database system. Redhat will have more of a financial interest in postgresql, creating an environment where redhat will encourage the development of the product through widespread exposure and of course financial support as well as tech support for customers. Those who don't use the Red hat database system will still benefit from an improved and more thoroughly tested postgresql with a new infusion of money/developer power/user base.
I just wanted to point out a couple of simple faults in your posting as a lot of your statements are based on beliefs, not facts. It's always a good policy to check things up before starting to comment on them
The important thing here is not which database is better, but when it's better. No database can be good for everything and if anyone is claiming this, he doesn't know what he is speaking about.
Monty
CTO of MySQL AB
My experience is that Watcom SQL/Sybase SQL Anywhere/Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere/whatever they're calling it today is the most ANSI compliant database. After all, didn't PostgreSQL just get outer joins in 7.1?
Nonetheless, we're using PostgreSQL for our current effort because of the price and the quality. It also has an amazing collection of built-in functions, and its flexibility for implementing triggers/rules is superb, if a bit obscure on occasion.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!!
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
For even more fun, take a look at the SAPDB sourcecode...
You're right. And those of us who played with, and were burned by, the immature Postgres have a permanently bad impression of it. I tried Postgres before MySQL because the license was more free. (A few years back). I found it slow and buggy. I also found that nearly everyone was using MySQL in the real world, so I got over the license and started using it. And loved it - it's a polished and really functional product, within its admittedly limited domain.
I played with Postgres again recently, and realized that because it (proudly) supports transactions and integrity constraints, I expect it to support a reasonable subset of SQL92. And yet, no subselects. And other annoying omissions I've forgotten.
Anyhow, what I want is a free Oracle-like database. I'm not sure how to even measure when Postgres gets there (although subselects are a necessity!) given the difficulty of benchmarking databases. Some say adabas is comparable to (pre 8i) Oracle. If so, I hope it catches on. To use it now would be to walk out on a very thin limb - I like the fact that all my Oracle and MySQL questions have been asked and answered on usenet.
So in the next generation of OS, Microsoft will do what best furthers their strategic interests. They have no need to balance this against market requirements, because realistically their customers have no choice. They will grumble about the loss of control over their data, etc, and pay through the nose for the same.
Free things will nibble the edges of the market while MS dominates the center.
You're right - I just tried a subselect and Postgres executed it happily. It was something else, something quite standard, that I was thinking of: I tried $thing and Postgres knew exactly what I meant, because it said "$thing not implemented". And for some reason I thought $thing == subselects.
So I tried strings `which postgres` | grep -i implement and I think it was ORDER BY and DISTINCT on views are not implemented which seemed such an arbitrary limitation. Admittedly a lot less important than subselects.
Why not MySQL?? It's more popular (and imho, better).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Regarding Red Hat's first ideas about the DB business in November 1999:
In regards to Red Hat doing their own PostgreSQL distro:
Regarding market share and competition:
Should prove to be interesting to watch and see what happens...
Moderators need an additional choice: "Karma Whore" for people who cut-and-paste articles as their comments!
Red Hat is a very generous contributor to all kinds of free software projects and you don't see them complaining when some new distro makes a copy of theirs and calls it something else.
--
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Ummm maybe I've just had too much to drink and totally didn't understand this, but PostgreSQL has been the default DB in RedHat distros since at least RH5.0 (unless that changed somewhere in 5.x). I just must not get it... whats the big fuckin deal? I actually always kinda wondered why mysql wasn't ever the default in RH distros, its always been PostgreSQL... so is this really any surprise at all?
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
stepwise.com for osx related things (& osx server and openstep and ...). See the softrak section for osx databases (mysql an Pg both). nb: the osx server and osx sections are different; and I don't use either so ?? on the cross compatibility front.
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Does anybody else here wonder how long it will be before DEA agents start reading /. on Friday nights?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
They doubtless will with Postgress as well. The generall feel of the thing is that they're planning on packaging up Postgress as a default database and then making money on support and (especially) consulting. Databases are one area in which it appears pretty clear that the suggested Free Software strategy of giving away the software and making money on consulting and support has a great chance of success. In order to be able to win the support and consulting contracts, though, it will be very helpful to RH to have deep, insider knowledge of the ins and outs of the product, and that suggests that they'll be developing as well as packaging it.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Don't know of any open source solutions but back in my military days we used a text-based DBMS called BRS by Dataware Technologies. It was *fast*. Made relational db's look stupid.
In the immortal words of Socrates, "I drank what?"
This page is a prime example of the immense value they add. Sure, an admin out to keep on top of security mail lists and such, but how many of these programs even bother to keep security notices going back for 2.5 years? A list like (together with rpm -q) is extreemly valuable for doing a quick check to make sure you didn't miss obvious security holes.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Thanks.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Did we use them all up giving a "3" to that troll above screaming about how Redhat was cravenly using Postgre after, get this, *HE HEARD* Redhat was writing their own?
Does one need an MCSE to get moderator access at Slashdot? Sure seems like it these days.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Momjian believes forking would be impractical as well as impolitic, and Red Hat's London offered the assurance that, "We don't intend to fork the code."
Sounds like they arn't going to fork the code. I would think that most/all of the stuff they add to Postgre could be a compile option (ie RPM intagration)
-jason m
n/t
Now hold on a cotton-pickin' minute here. I am a PostgreSQL expert and I use PostgreSQL in my projects. But that doesn't stop me from reccomending MySQL when it's appropriate.
When is it appropriate? An example: I was called in on an emergency basis to help a Silicon Valley company with their web database. Turns out they have a DB with over 6,000,000 records in the main tables backing an interactive web site *and not one singe DB tech on staff*!! Needless to say, MS SQL Server was malfunctioning a bit.
I got them running on MySQL. WHy? Not because it's a better performer, or because it supports SQL compliance (it doesn't) but because their web guy, with almost no DB expertise at all, can run it without it crashing or bogging down in out-of-date indexes.
So give the MySQL team a break. They've created the Honda CRX of databases -- fast, cheap, reliable, and easy to park -- and don't measure their product against standards it wasn't designed for.
-Josh Berkus
>I played with Postgres again recently, and
>realized that because it (proudly) supports
>transactions and integrity constraints, I expect
>it to support a reasonable subset of SQL92. And
>yet, no subselects. And other annoying omissions
>I've forgotten.
Maybe what you forgot to do is actually look at the feature list and/or try using the features you think are missing. Postgresql supported sub-selects even in the 6.X series.
Matt
* The threading vs. processes was indeed my bad. :)
Since I have no idea why I said one when I
meant the other.
* No, those numbers are meaningless unless more
background is given. What backend are they
using? What proportion of selects to inserts?
Are they simple or complex queries? How big
are the tables? What operating system and
hardware platform are they running on?
The "numbers speak for themselves" arguments
rank only below the "we lack all these features,
but you shouldn't use them anyways, and besides,
we're planning them in the next few major
release" arguments in sullying the reputation
of MySQL in a lot of people's eyes.
* Unless your website is publishing false
information, you're wrong about locking on
MyISAM tables. I quote, "Currently MySQL only
supports table locking for ISAM/MyISAM and HEAP
tables and page level locking for BDB tables."
* MVCC has been part of Postgresql since June
1999; InnoDB was originally interfaced with
MySQL September 2000 and made part of the
mainstream distribution March 2001.
Likewise, MVCC is the locking backend for EVERY
Postgres installation, whereas InnoDB likely
constitutes a small portion of MySQL installs.
Guess which one has proven itself in production
environments?
* Again with the "usually". Your statement is
meaningless and only serves to discredit your
repute if you don't give at least some context.
Yes, MySQL *can* be up to 100 times faster; it
can also curl up in a little ball and cry like
a little girl under loads that Postgres and
other more featureful databases would handle
gracefully.
No, not every database is suited for every
application, but as I pointed out in my
original comment, there are very few instances
I can see where MySQL makes a better choice.
The lack of a robust implementation of ANSI
SQL make anything but trivial database schema
painful to implement and typically requires
reimplementing the missing features in each and
every piece of client code. Though the latest
release of MySQL adds many missing features,
most of them are in table backends that are
not widely adopted and thus lack rigorous
testing (and I'm not talking about a simple
regression test).
The main complain is the lack of fine-grained
locking, which makes most common usage patterns
(save data warehousing, which someone was kind
enough to reminds me of) perform worse as
access grows. This very real limit on practical
scalability makes theoretical performance edge
nigh meaningless in many situations.
* If you'll re-read my comments on the benchmark
on the InnoDB site, the complaint about the
Postgres test was not that it was missing
instructions for recreating the results, but
that the ONLY comparison was on select speed,
single client.
However, my issue with the test against a
"market-leading database" was in fact a matter
of them using different methedology for testing
each database, and only publishing the perl
code for the InnoDB test:
"Source code of tests for InnoDB is included
at the end of this email. Note that the tests
were not run in exactly the same way for the
other database."
* Regardless of whether its hard to write
benchmarks that cover concurrent access or not,
it doesn't change the fact that what is
currently published on the MySQL website is
nothing more than marketing material. To recap
a previous analogy, its like choosing a sports
car over a pick-up truck for hauling on the
basis that the sports car goes REALLY fast
when carrying a single two by four.
* I've read innumerable comparisons between
Postgres and MySQL. Not to mention having a
fair amount of experience with both in a
production environment.
It was, in fact, my research and the limitations
and poor performance I have experienced with
MySQL in a large-scale deployment that have
formed my opinions on the matter.
Given that one of my "simple faults" was a slip
of the tongue and another is backed up by
published material on your own website,
coupled with your failure to adequately
address my "opinions", you might want to
reconsider the condescending tone you chose
to take in the first paragraph of your
response.
You could always do ORDER BY and DISTINCT *on* a view, just not as part of one.
That limitation is removed in the 7.1 release.
Matt
If you take a close look at the benchmarking on the InnoDB site, you'll notice their comparison against Postgresql is only measuring speeds with a since query running against the database. Likewise for their MyISAM vs. InnoDB test, and their MySQL vs "market-leading database test".
So all of these suffer from the same thing that the default MySQL benchmarks do - they're meaningless save for marketing. There are very few real world applications that are going to have serialized queries, and those that do are likely not going to require a lot of raw speed.
If you'll notice, the only test that they use multiple connections with is their scalability test, in which they make no comparison to other databases, and that showed performance dropping sharply on selects after 50 clients, and didn't even bother giving performance on more than 20 for inserts (I'd be interested in knowing whether they were just embarassing or if the server actually crashed).
And none of the tests include a mixed load of selects and inserts. And they flat out admit their methodology was different for MySQL and the contender in one test. And they ran all of it on a single server. And none of the tests include large tables, joins, transactions, sub-selects, etc, etc. The number of faults with their benchmarks are innumerable.
Part of the beauty of the newer releases of Postgresql (aside from the improvements to the query optimizer) is their new "no-locking" MVCC (Multi Version Concurrency Control) system. Selects NEVER block inserts and vice versa.
This is a _huge_ win in terms of performance in real world situations; coupled with the row (or even cell level) locking pretty much guarante better scalability than MySQL, even if running a table type that supports finer grain locking (I believe the best they do right now is page level).
I like to think of MySQL as a sports car. It'll get to zero to sixty faster than an 18-wheel truck. But if you try to put any load on it, it won't even more.
(Note - the company I work for uses MySQL for a large production database. And it has worked even for a fairly large database under a somewhat heavy load. However, it is performing adequately, not well. And there are a lot of things we simply CANNOT do (e.g. a large query against the database for statistics purposes, since the select would lock all inserts and deadlock the database. Even under normal load its not uncommon for us to see 20-30 selects locked waiting for an insert to complete).
And to be honest, even if MySQL performed half as well as their documentation implied, I find the lack of features like sub selects, select into table, transactions (under the heavily tested table types), stored procedures, triggers, foreign keys and views make it a waste of my time and a waste of the programmers time.
We have dozens of programs and scripts that all have to access the database and they all have to work around the deficiencies in MySQLs capabilities. And, to be honest, not every attempt to do so is ultimately successful, resulting in hours wasted doing cleanup work (when it actually CAN be done without killing the database.).
I don't begrudge other people their preferences, but it would take a LOT of improvement and real benchmarks to convince me MySQL is a better database.
Matt
I need to be 100% clear on this. Is RedHat essentially repackaging some other group's code and selling it as their own with some token of financial support to the original coding team?
I was under the impression (yesterday? 2 days ago?) that they would be starting a DB project from scratch. If what I'm saying is correct, why is this fucking steaming pile even being mentioned? All they are going to do is wrap a customized installer around someone else's hard work.
But - MySql has been plagued by the fact that they never implemented foreign key support into their DBMS.
Well, they know this as well. Please note the 1st item on the todo list for version 4.0.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Great Bridge and Red Hat are planning to bring new features and keep it's source closed for a while.
I do believe you need to back this statement up with some facts, if you've got them. If this is purely opinion, then please state what previous action RedHat has taken to lead you to this opinion.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Do yourself a favor - make the effort to move to Postgres
I probably would have already except for one factor. After a number of horridly failed attempts I've found a web hosting company that is both rock solid and with a fair price. The down side is that they don't do anything with Postgres as of yet. If it was offered up, I'd most likely jump on it.
As it is, MySQL has been doing a great job for me on a couple of different sites that I've put together. I've not had any corrupted data, downtime, or slow server response due to the database. One of the sites I've put together actually gets hit with a pretty fair amount of traffic, on a shared server even, and things hold up pretty darn well.
I may do some playing around with Postgres here on my local FreeBSD box before too long. Thing is, at this point I don't have a web host I really trust that I can publish that work to. The down side of finding a good thing in a hosting vendor is not wanting to jump around feature hunting.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Doubtful there will be any immediate benefit beyond simply coupling Postgres with RedHat, other than the RPM integration you mentioned. In the long run though, consider how Microsoft has put SQL Server to work for them. Pretty much every product they label "Enterprise" somehow integrates in with their database server.
As RedHat goes struggling for the "Enterprise" market, having a known database running under the hood is going to become more and more critical. Anything they can do to simplify the process of getting that database up and running quickly is also a major selling point over other solutions.
Personally, I mostly use MySQL for stuff. I'm a simpleton, and it's nice and simple. For what RedHat is looking to do I doubt there's a better choice out there than Postgres. That, and if Postgres gets a nice influx of new dedicated developers this should be great news for both RedHat and Postgres users.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I'm glad someone has finally gotten the guts to come out and say it.
Its clear that since its purchase by andover.net, Slashdot's sole raison d'etre is to foist thinly-veiled capitalistic schemes upon the unsuspecting masses.
Of course, nobody will ever see this message, since the censors in the GOP will remove it before it is widely circulated.
--Don't blame me, I voted for Gore--
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Will this become part of Red Hat Professional Server? I've heard a lot of good things about PostgreSQL and am very happy that Red Hat is going to start working with it! I use RHPS on a daily basis and will buy the next version even more quickly if Red Hat DB/Red Hat PostgreSQL will be included.
Very sweet news!!!
sorry used all my points today... :-(
5 points not enough in order to promote the good posts and bash the silly ones
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
--
I hate people who quote
say.. flaming people sounds like a better idea, thanks :)
Don't even go spouting off about SAPDB being the best, why because yes it it the most industrial strength of the bunch. Now the only drawback to SAPDB is lack of good tools and the necessity of being a rocket scientist to even get the damn thing to run much less supporting it. We tried running the damn thing and actually got it to work but the maintenance and documentation issues turned us back to postgres for the real work.
Got Code?
Second. Define 'proper support for BLOBs'. Stored in-row? Dumbass. Imagine trying the DB trying to scan a table with variable size up-to-2-gig BLOBs in the way. Most every DB stores BLOBs in a seperate area from the rows, and I think if you look more closely, you'll see MySQL does the same.
Lastly, Netscape's TEXTAREA has a size limit of, IIRC, 32000 characters. If you use lempel-ziv compression (zip) you'll get that under 8k. As it happens, Postgres has a type, lztext, that does the compression transparently. So complaining about Postgres 7.0 for web work shows major lack of savvy.
If you'd expand your acronyms, you'd see that 'BLOB' is binary!. Text is not. You're talking about LOBs, and you still don't need to use them. Save them for when you need to store several megs text, which you'll find most people don't type very often, nor very quickly.
The only props I can give here is that MySQL's parser seems much more willing when working with BLOBs. At what size input does its parser break?
create table mean_bean_machine (
id integer primary key,
description varchar(7000),
bean_bag blob
)
In schema definition and SQL parsing, the blob is a normal column. To the database internals, the blob is not stored with the rest of the table, instead a location reference is stored with the normal data that points to a less organized area where LOBs are stored. For simplicity's sake, envision the tabular data as a linear series of 8k disk blocks.(or 4k, or 2k, or whatever). Algorithms scanning the tables can quickly move down this line of blocks, because of the regularity in layout. Such algorithms could not do the same if huge chunks of LOB were in the way, so they are stored elsewhere on disk. Every RDBMS does this, the only differences are the specifics.
What you're missing is that none of this matters to the user -- this is all internal to the database's storage structure, and the great win with the relational model is the separation of physical storage and logical design.
To get back to your specifics, 1) you shouldn't have to have a seperate table for LOBs, 2) Postgres handles LOBs just fine, and 3) you should be wary of streaming BLOBs out of MySQL -- I'm not sure how that goes over given MySQL's table-level locks. I'd suggest ripping the BLOB out quick and caching it in RAM.
HTH
Most of these systems offer a LOB type that stores the actual LOB in its own file on the filesystem, so you do have that option. The problems with LOB-on-filesystem is that the LOBs are then exposed to, well, any luser on the system, some of whom mistype 'rm' arguments. Besides not being under the control of the DB's security, LOB-on-fs limits locking to standard semaphores (no MVCC), adds a layer of syscalls, complicates caching, and the DB can't do very intelligent reads like it can on its own tablespaces.
Really the only reason to use LOB-on-fs is if you need to access those same objects without going through the DB, like if you want to edit a 500M LOB in emacs. Interestingly, Oracle runs a SMB server in 8i that can expose everything as an apparent filesystem, so even that reason is a bit flimsy....
After adding all the above, MySQL will need some serious (read: light-years of) development on their query analyzer. MySQL does well on simple selects but performs notably slow on complex queries. Which is hardly a surprise given their assumptions, design goals, and evangelism.
InnoDB needs more testing, and it needs to continue to grow. I have full faith in Heikki Turri's skill.
I cannot say the same for the other MySQL AB developers. They have spent the last few years stonewalling efforts to turn MySQL into a real DB. They proclaimed that transactions were bad, table locks were as fine grained as you ever needed, constraints should be handled by the client application, and that stored procedures existed because other vendors couldn't write fast SQL parsers (thus showing a failure to understand the difference between declarative and procedural programming). Now, demands from their larger customers, plus products from people like Heikki, appear to be forcing MySQL AB forwards towards ACID compliance. So, no, I do not trust MySQL AB to implement these things quickly and effectively.
If you read their TODOs, you can see most of this stuff in targeted for 4.1. That's 2 major revs away. What will Postgres be doing in that time?
BTW, your web server is serving 403s. You should probably check on that.
The PostgreSQL Group has an mp3 and a wav on their site, has for quite a while now:
postgresql.mp3.
J
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Errr....Sorry to rain on the flaim parade but Slashdot has historically covered successful Linux ventures --- and and this proud moment I am sad to say that from a finacial standpoint there is not much other than Redhat that fits this category. And although I am more of a Slackware guy....(yea walnut creek sent my favorite distro packing months ago)....my kudos go out to RedHat for making it happen...Thumbs up guys!
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
You see, I'm not really sure that this really matters.
I don't know one serious DBA in the enterprise level who prefers a GUI over SQL/shell-scripts in terms of administration.
The GUI may come in for small installations with very limited DBA expertise. And then I think it's a dangerous thing.
The thing about GUIs for complex environments is, that it just masquaredes potentially immensly complex software products.
In no way does it replace knowledge in the area of database -, or network engineering. Just having a "drop database" pull down menu item doesn't avoid table scans on HorriblyInsaneLargeTable.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
True enough. But when you read the license agreement it says that you can't use it in a productive environment. If you do so you need to purchase the product, which prices about comparable to the NT version (11.9.2). If you want to connect it to the internet it gets really expensive. You can use 11.0.3 for whatever you want, but that's an unsupported, end of life version (neverthelsess an excellent database engine). In a business you can absolutely not use an unsupported database.
Of course there's still no decent linux version (that I know of) of Adaptive Server Anywhere, which is, IMHO a much nicer lightweight database
It sure is a nice lightweight database, but not up to the industrial strength enterprise league in terms of robustness, security, recoverability, availability, scalability and documentation.
Adaptive Server IQ, their warehousing database.
That would be sure nice, but since Replication Server is available and developed on Linux one, as you say, still can hope.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
But then there's a huge difference. When M$ supplied Sybase with the kiss of death (nearly so) you as a customer had exactly two choices, provided you wanted to stick with the Sybase engine:
Buy Micr$oft SQLServer for a lot of money
Purchase Sybase SQLServer (Adaptive Server Enterprise as of today) for a helluva lot of money
Both database engines where quite comparable and both where propriatery.
This is the beauty of the Open Source model:
While Red Hat can fork it of course, or theoretically could even make a propriatery, binary version only, this is very unlikely to happen. And even if it would, it would probably be a failure and allienate a hell of a lot of key people.If Red Hat however develops cool features, those are very likely to wind up in the code if the Postgresql user community also deems them cool.
I think this announcement is a very good thing and will benefit all: Postgresql development, Red Hat software and the rest of us in need for an industrial strength, kick ass database engine.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I dunno, it's hard to feel pathetic when your RDBMS knowledge boosts your salary by a few $10k per year.
MySQl is dying.....Things are not looking to well at the the MYSQL camp.......postgres makes up all installs of redhat distro's but lets compare it to other distros....where suse has only %20 of mysql downloads ...to last debian with only around 10k downloads. MySQL is dead!"
:-)
http://saveie6.com/
For Redhat, the idea of building a database would be a bad for bussiness on their part. First off, they would piss off Oracle and IBM and we need their support to move linux to the enterprise. Second, Redhat finally made a profit and why develop something with no instant return? If enterprise users need something powerfull Oracle or DB2 would be there. right?
.NEt/hailstorm :-) ), cheaper, and hopefully more powerfull. I assume redhat will come out with its own threading scheme and might put some limited functions in the kernel like what they did with TUX. SQL server is faster because its in the kernel and its supprising stable because they made sure to only put the indexing routines in the kernel and not memory managment in SQL server. We need real competition before ms guts Oracle from the bottom up.
.ocx for easy development for all the VB zombies, then I will be happy.
But after reading the CNET article and figuring out what market they want to go after it makes pefect sense. Microsoft's strategy is to scare IT managers buy showing a product get better and better to make them think its going to gut competion from the bottom up. Remember Scalablity day 5 years ago? Ms demonstrated transaction server handling a million hits a day with transaction server/wolfpack on NT4 on a dual pentiumpro 200. IT managers noticed it ran well in low end hardware and they thought "wow, if NT can do this on pc hardware, think about what it can do with higher end hardware! In 5 years unix will be dead!". It worked! Overnight NT4 became a best seller and many doubted that unix would ever survive. Today its laughable but the marketing worked and they are using a similiar strategy with SQL server.
SQL Server is practically the defacto standard already in any mid-range or even department database. MS is gutting them from the ground up. IT managers still have the all ms craze of 5 years ago and Oracle/sun or db2/as400 is pretty expensive and is used for large operations and is slower in midrange use. This is why Oracle bans the use of benchmarks. Sql Server is serious competition and is getting better. Sql server is supprising stable where I work and it went down only once in 3 years!
IT managers who buy redhat use it for a quick webserver installation or cheap department server. SQL server is cheaper to buy and implement for a bussiness database and it has support for odbc, ADO, oledb which are all becoming the defacto standards. Postgres as it is today has some limited odbc support, is not scalable, hard to set it up to handle a real load. I have no idea how Rob Malda even managed to run his site with only Mysql. Contrary to poular believe here on slashdot postgres, and mySQL are great for development but suck in real bussiness situations with hundreds of users. PHPbuilder.com did a benchmark and showed mysql having trouble with intense SQL calls with only 30 users. Since database access is essential for any web/intranet, messaging, or client/server app we need to have an alternative with great odbc, ado, oledb support as well as JDBC.
The problem with SQL Server is it doesn't support JDBC (wonder why) without an expensive third party extension. Servelts are pretty standard for retreiving data on intranet/internet servers. So if you have java servlets running on an intranet server you need a real database but only expensive oracle/sun or db2/as400 is available for real bussiness use( I assume 500-1000 users)?
Microsoft's answer is c#.net or VB.net applets running on SQL.NET wich is cheaper and fully integrated. You can also save development time by writing the apps in Visual basic and that alone could save for the cost of the servers. Sorry Redhat but most IT manangers would choose MS in such a situation.
With a real midrange database there can be a more economical solution thats more fault tollerant (if connection to the web dies, the server goes down in
IF redhat can accelerate postgres, and make it scale to many processors, support oledb, odbc and
http://saveie6.com/
They say that there's nothing more pathetic than a sad clown and, while that may be true in most cases, I am truly sadder and clownier than the saddest clown... at least right now. Luckily, I'm too numb to notice. Heh heh.
Also, this is a great move for Redhat in that it not only diversified their potential for support income past just the OS itself now that RH is actually making money, but also offers an oddly top-quality OSS database with an increasingly stable name recognition behind it to win some goofy nods in the corporate boardroom of Smallco. Redhat certainly ain't no Microsoft or Adobe quite yet in terms of public knowledge, but with the number of slobberpails© who immediately assume that Red Hat *IS* Linux *IS* Redhat, it's the closest thing that the Linux community has to an overall "street rep".
Blah. Insightful or Troll, I really don't care.
---
---
Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
Did I mention how much I love this OS?If I had any mod points right now I'd give them to wrinkledshirt. This is such an excellent point- red hat is a bridge for lots of people to get into linux, and they've done a good job not pissing anyone off too badly so far. Plus they are profitable.
So long as they don't abuse their brand by doing evil things, I say go red hat, build a brand so powerful that even the emperor himself will be forced to deal with us...
er,
if you'd just lead them to true freedom, they'd follow you, and so would I,
er,
bring balance to the force,
er...
I can't believe I'm not posting this anonymously
-one os to run them all, and in the darkness bind them...
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I think you're mistaking supported drivers for included drivers. However, freetds_jdbc is good enough for use with BRL, even though a lot of advanced JDBC features are lacking. It's in production use where I work.
http://lwn.net/daily/rh-database.php3
Now if this was an Oracle story, people would be creaming in their pants while posting. But since RedHat is so uncool & PostGres is unpopular (read: harder than MySQL, not as cool (read: expensive) as Oracle), everyone's like, "What is the deal with RedHat & PostGreSQL? How dumb is this? I don't get it."
I replied to the previous (here) and, what do you know, here's Sarcasta going gagga over Oracle. No offense, Sarcasta, I haven't had the luck to work with Oracle, so.... But working with DB2 in Java is almost orgasmic for me--OK, yes, that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever admitted on /., but, hey, I love my work. But look at the post I responded to (here) where metachimp explains why RedHat did this. All of the Linux distros have MySQL, PostGreSQL, etc., but I have never been able to sell a non-web-based solution using any of these. I start talking up PostGreSQL, and the clients smile & nod & ask if I know how to use a real database. The funny thing is that these people always have legacy databases in DOS or Filemaker or some such P.O.S. So hopefully RedHat can come up with an Access-Killer. Also, quandry for Sarcasta/Kathleen: I wanted to set up a client on MacOSX with a Linux database server (Ad agency (likes iMacs) needs good DB (PostGreSQL)), but LinuxPPC scares me a bit--especially Java support. Have any OSS databases been ported to MacOSX? I could just throw an x86 box in the mix, but then there are two OS & hardware platforms to maintain. TIA for any advice.
Does anyone remember the poor schmoe who wanted to ODBC-link MySQL into MSAccess for the GUI tools? There are so many people that are crippled by GUI SQL tools, but OTOH, it's better than nothing. There is a great benefit to being able to use DBs with SQL that is more complicated than simple SELECT & INSERT statements. There is no (none, not one, nada, etc.) OLAP tool (AFAIK) that runs on Linux. So you can store tons of data on DB2 or Oracle or what_have_you, but you can't do much with it. I create a lot of custom OLAP tools on Linux using Perl and Java, but I'm not quite at the point where I can put it all together in a nice GUI package and throw it onto Freshmeat. Once I get the graphing objects done, then I'm GPL'ing that sh!t. But I can do just about anything OLAP-wise (on a very small scale) in Access (with the MS_SQL_OLAP component) quite easily. Forget the Enterprise level, Linux needs to make headway with small businesses. I like small businesses, but they don't know Jack about Technology. So they will hurt themselves triply by buying M$, never even figuring out half of what the software can do, and then being locked into M$ anyways as they grow. RedHat has good potential & seems canny enough, but I think it all depends on how good their support offerings are.
I haven't had much experience with OSX, and I don't want to figure out a whole new server platform--or really, anything other than Debian. I wanted to use Macs as workstations. But the 1st time I checked out OSX, I couldn't find /bin, /etc, nothing. It has a freaking "Mac OS X" directory (a lá "Windows/WINNT")! My final hope was that their was some database that would work with OSXServer. What is the point of OSXServer? Does NextStep work well on it or something? I think it's hilarious that FileMaker runs on Linux, now??? I can't figure out what the hell Apple is thinking, but they're wasting a lot of good technology & development--NOT FileMaker, I don't mean that POS.
To these kinds of people (which are unfortunately the people often writing the checks), when they hear PostGres, the name translates to a big fat "huh?". But if you take that software, gussy it up, and slap the word RedHat on it, and you instantly change that to "oh, RedHat's database".
I think its silly that such means must be gone to, but if this gets more opensource out into the enterprise world, then I'm all for it. Once people adopt the platform and the bumbling populace is more 'edumacated' about the Linux world, people will wake up and say "hey, I can just use PostGres!".
Damn the rusty wheels of corporate progress.
Er... considering you can get a RedHat distribution and PostgreSQL right now for free, I don't think they're going to be looking at this as a direct revenue generator. Heck, PostgreSQL is server-ready pretty much out of the box with RH distros these days.
Chances are it'll be for value-adding, kind of what Microsoft did by including a web browser with the OS. Love the web browser? Need the os. In this case, love RHDB? Need RH.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Yes sir, we folks at Red Hat, known for the Red Hat Linux Distribution, RHCEs and enterprise-level solutions, are now packing with every forthcoming Red Hat distribution a Red Hat configured database solution for low- to middle-tier database needs. The RHDB will be specially customized for Red Hat systems, which are put out by Red Hat, the most prominent Linux distribution on the market today.
You laugh, because it seems obvious here, but I remember taking a look over at a Microsoft story on MSNBC, and found no less than 75 instances of Microsoft branding, using "Microsoft" or "MS" or "Windows". And this was for one story, on one web page.
Any new avenue that Red Hat can use to drop its own name is an opportunity to solidify mindshare. Entering the database arena with a core product that won't embarass them is a no-brainer. They've even got GTK+ experts in-house that can make the thing look pretty.
This could be a SERIOUS hit to MS Access and SQL server. And with Postgresql functionality built straight into php, the whole MS-IIS-ACCESS/SQLS-ASP combination can be easily matched in terms of quality, performance and reliability by Linux-Apache-RedhatDB-PHP combination, totally surpassed in terms of cost, and only lagging behind a little bit in the gui department. From a marketing standpoint, it makes the solution LOOK more cohesive (even if it isn't), and that's always been the selling point of going with an MS solution -- smart move by RedHat. And with the GPL on their hands, we can trust them not to be sluggish and proprietary in terms of responding to the community's needs -- good move for us.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Whats gotten your panties in a twist?
Just a reminder to all :
Seriously, why not use sapdb? We know it's pretty robust, perhaps too much so? It seems like too good a product to just let it sit unused.
OK I'm confused. PostgreSQL is PostgreSQL. If they don't intend to fork PostgreSQL, then why give it it's own name (Red Hat Database)? I'm not sure I understand the incentive here.
If you read Slashdot regularily it wasn't until the last couple of days that Red Hat popped up a few times. Coincidence. So what?
Why you got modded up is beyond me. I would have modded you down as 'troll'.
Purchase Sybase SQLServer (Adaptive Server Enterprise as of today) for a helluva lot of money
Or download Adaptive Server Enterprise for Linux for free...
Of course there's still no decent linux version (that I know of) of Adaptive Server Anywhere, which is, IMHO a much nicer lightweight database, nor Adaptive Server IQ, their warehousing database.
Still, one can hope...
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
So far I haven't see any decent linux DB solution never mind a decent open source DB solution. I'm guessing Red Hat are getting on this because nobody else has made any head way in the commercial linux db market.
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M0571y H@rml355.
I use OpenBSD on my all of my company webservers and honestly, I would never even think of switching. I don't know anyone who would choose any other operating system for a server of some kind.
Bwahahaha. You must be kiddin' me. Once upon a time MySql was better - but only in terms of performance. But - MySql has been plagued by the fact that they never implemented foreign key support into their DBMS. The MySql documentation speaks of foreign keys as if they are a bad thing. Which is of course a joke because everybody who has studied DBMS's seriously, knows that foreign keys are an integral part the relational database model as it exists.
Now, I ask you, why would the MySql designers occupy such a religious statement?
Is it because they would never be able to implement foreign key support afterwards into a static design, where you just could not possibly fit it in without a rewrite of the core DBMS logic?
Mysql is mostly a way of storing your data in some kind of simple hashed form, accessible with SQL queries. That's why mysql is so fast with queries.
But I think this was never the meaning of the relation model. I can store my data in my own hashed format, and my queries would be just as fast, or faster. Mysql is just a packaged piece of software representing this simple kind of storage, which answer to only the most simplest of SQL queries.
Take postgresql on the other hand: foreign key support, transaction roll-back support, ability to plug-in your favourite query language (be it based on tuple or domain calculus or relational algebra like sql), etc etc etc. With the added bonus that PostgreSQL *smokes* mysql on every available benchmark that you can find, it's clear which is the better option.
Who is more pathetic....the fool who talks about databases, or the fool who talks about talking about databases? (or the fool who talks about talking about talking about databases)?
Historically, MySQL has been faster, and had *PROPER* support for BLOBs. Not that crappy 8k/row limit PostgresSQL has. (had?) One of the primary uses for databases on the web is to store text (articles), and hence the postgresql row limits were a problem for many people. (And no, I dont wanna bother with that seperate blob interface.)
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After reading the story and other information in the past concerning this development, I don't understand what redhat is exactly trying to do here. Will redhat package the db on its on and sell the packaging + support? (like it does with linux) Why do this? Why not just increase distribution of PostgreSQL (i.e.: a download page on its site and add a couple of marketing dudes), add pay-for-support and put some caffeine drinking pizza eating coders on PostgreSQL? Seems as though RH is taking this too far. If they are going all the way, perhaps RH should use some stock to buy out one of the above mentioned PostgreSQL distros.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
the lack of transactions suck, that's for sure. i'm working on a small-scale e-commerce site with MySQL-it'll do fine, not a big volume of traffic at all. i have several clients i'm doing stuff for, and it seems that all the hosters are providing MySQL as the RDBMS. so it's free, i get it, but so is PostgreSQL. how come they don't use that? is MySQL that much easier to use? currently my only d.b. experience is with MySQL, so i have no point of comparison.
NO gods, NO governments, NO [OPTION]....
ok, i don't feel as stupid asking now-how DO you pronounce PostgreSQL? Oracle, Informix, DB2, MySQL, SQL server, etc. etc. are all so much easier to roll off the tongue-and they don't make CIS PhDs as stupid sound as well probably :)
NO gods, NO governments, NO [OPTION]....
So are there any other benefits (besides RPM integration) of using Red Hat's version of PostgreSQL over the standard?
I KNOW I'm right. And if I'm not, I'm STILL right...
I am very happy to hear this. I write a database agnostic product and PostgreSQL is the only one that is consistantly ANSI compliant.
Interview with the postgres people:
"Red Hat "proposed several ways where we would be a subcontractor" for the database effort, Batten said in an interview. Under all of the proposals, "they'd get most of the revenue" and control the product's brand name--terms Great Bridge found unacceptable. "
Redhat wanted to take Postgres, let the postgres people continue to develop it basically without payment while Redhat took all the money.
Do you think this is fair.
This is the biggest problem with open source, the individual becomes powerless compared to big companies since you don't own your work anymore but the companies use other kind of IPs like tademark.
Sucks!
I find this to be remarkably similar to what Microsoft did with Sybase and SQL Server. Eventually, you're likely to see RH with literally their own product such that it's unrecognizable as being postgres.
All I ask is that you look at what was said before labelling something as flamebait. You'll see that I said nothing even remotely critical of any company. I would recommend anyone curious doing a little research on the history behind SQL Server. It's quite interesting and merely shows two companies can have very different ideas of product direction without one of them being wrong. It's all a matter of focus and priorities.
Reason 1: Installation
My experience, and the experience of a friend while we were making the pilgramage from Doze to the Holy Land was this.....
It took me three frustrating days NOT to install PostgreSQL and two frustrating hours to install MySQL.
One of my pals spent every evening for a week and one whole Saturday to install PostgreSQL, then decided to download the Oracle developer's version for Linux, which he installed in one Saturday.
Reason 2: For PHP web development, it's easy, fast an 'feature adequate'
The only feature I miss in MySQL (which may have been added since), is subqueries ie. SELECT y FROM z WHERE x in (SELECT a FROM b WHERE y)
Apart from that, developing PHP/web based applications is pretty easy with MySQL, and since it was probably installed on my various web-hosts for Reason 1 above, it was more available.
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I am the director, and this is my movie
Foreign keys can be implemented by the programmer with an index and a subquery. It's the subquery that that needs to be implemented in MySQL, not foreign keys.
Once subqueries are implemented, a competent programmer will be able to implement foreign keys hirself. Do you place yourself in that esteem (ie. competent programmer)?
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I am the director, and this is my movie
innodb.
Once this code is more stable it would give lots of image problems to postgres. Additionally, MySQL has a very clean code.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. - Lazarus Lon
SlashDot is owned by OSDN.com, part of the VALinux.com empire, lackies of the Bush-Gore conspiracy!!!
I don't believe that RedHat has any desire to fork the code --- have they forked Linux? gcc? gdb? a bunch of other stuff that they contribute work to? No, they'll contribute to the project and package releases, same as they do with those projects. I've already met with some of their developers who will be contributing, so I know this is real. This should be good all around.
However, feel free to flame their apparent intention to plaster their own name on an open-source project that's been around considerably longer than RedHat itself has. That bit sticks in my craw, too. I've got to suppose that that's the brainchild of some clue-free marketroid.
how come they don't use [Postgres]?
MySQL has good mind-share among webmasters, no doubt about it. My two cents about why: it reflects where things stood several years ago, when people first started setting up database-backed websites. At that time, Postgres had just been thrown over the wall from Berkeley as being not quite the cutting-edge research they wanted to do anymore. The current crowd of developers picked it up and started to turn it into a robust, production-grade system --- something it is looking more like all the time. But back then, it was a research system: it wasn't especially portable, nor especially easy to install, nor especially bug-free. Many early webmasters looked at it and couldn't get past those problems, for which I can't blame them a lot. Meanwhile, MySQL was a brand new system; not real featureful, maybe, but they'd done their homework on making it easy to install and use. So it got adopted by a lot of people. Now Postgres has to play catchup in the mindshare department, even though the problems that originally drove people away from it are largely history.
RedHat's adoption of Postgres may do something to help in acquiring mindshare...