What is Holding SAP-DB Back?

Derek Neighbors queries: "The current story about MySQL 4.0 has erupted into a Postgres vs. MySQL debate. We at GNU Enterprise, who have used about all Free and Propietary databases, would like to know why exactly people arent using SAP-DB? It clearly is on par with Oracle, is GPL and frankly has an awesome support team in SAP AG. There was a PG vs SAP-DB recently. Someone else mentioned that you can get CDROMs for free. So again the question is 'What exactly is hindering a wider acceptance of SAP-DB in Free/Open Software projects?'"

Comments

Not in BSD ports tree.

[marcovje]

Subject says it all. Probably also goes for Linux, (but the argument there would probably be more
"doesn't comes (integrated) with the distribution"

If something gets included with distributions, it spreads much faster

Applications

[Captain Kirk]

There is a strong first mover advantage to Internet applications. For example, if you want to create a online shop, there are loads of free apps, tutorials and useful mailing lists for php/mysql. There are a lot less for php/postgresql. Almost none for php/sap-db.

Unless you are a software genius, the sensible choice is the one with most support in the community. Think perl, mysql.

This creates a network effect that your expertise gets added to the pool of knowledge and thus that pool becomes even more inviting.

Taken to the next step, you see fine languages like Python and fine databases like PostgreSQL fall behind in terms of support because their pool of expertise comes from a smaller number of users. But they do fine because there are so many developers out there who love them. These tools thrive with a a certain "less popular but more excellent" feel.

Sadly, if a third player comes along some years later, then they will have a very hard time getting a following big enough to generate the pool of expertise that leads to having lots of applications. Think Ruby, SAP-DB.

And its applications that determine popularity.

That is the short answer to the question - waht is holding SAP-DB back. Excellence isn't everything - being first on the scene gives huge advantages. And they were nowhere near first...

Patrick

time

[denshi]

Time is the thing 'holding it back'. As Paul Graham pointed out, "Inventors of wonderful new things are often surprised to discover this, but you need time to get any message through to people. ... It's not when people notice you're there that they pay attention; it's when they notice you're still there." No matter the benefits of SAPDB (which I have not used), it still has to keep hacking it while people subconciously adjust to the existense of another valid product. This inertia is everywhere, it is the normal thing to do... 3 years back, even when it was obvious that Postgres kicked MySQL's ass 6 ways from Sunday, many people kept using MySQL. It was a known quantity, and this new thing was just something with some wild claims that users didn't take time to validate. A couple years later, the LAMP crowd is/has finally moving/moved towards Postgres; it's not b/c of anything developed last year, it's just that users have realized that it's not going away. Same problem here, scaled back several years.

The originator of the thread should learn that technology doesn't change overnight, and certainly not without the kind of marketing budgets behind Java & C#. Change takes time.

As another answer, I'd ask what is the driving point behind SAPDB? MySQL has/had noteriety for being a very simple system; Postgres had noteriety for advanced research into ORDBMS'es as well as coming out of a university lab that produced two very successful commercial DBs in the past. What's the big focus with SAPDB? All I know so far is that it was an in-house thing that worked for SAP. No idea what that's supposed to mean to me. Maybe someone should answer that first.