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

Re:Oracle

[yatest5]

I know somewhere you can get cheap glass for the broken panes on your house... ;-)

Why?

[mjstrom]

There are a few reasons

1. It is relatively unknown
2. Look at the home page for the database - look at the top of the page, see the ad for SAP? I think things like that are a major factor for why no one uses it. From the appearances (IHMO) the sites gives the impression that SAP opened up the database so they could say "we are an open source company" and jump on that bandwagon.

Re:Why doesn't SAP use it?

[John Hasler]

If it is good wine I would by all I can at 2$ a
bottle. The problem is that more frequently then
not you do "get what you pay for" with wine and
many other things.

Heh. Reminds me of the study I read about recently where a guy swapped the labels on cheap Algerian wines and expensive French ones and offered them to a group of wine tasters. I think you can guess the results.

Re:Why doesn't SAP use it?

[EastCoastSurfer]

I drink lots of wine :) My goal in drinking lots of wine is to find good wine(defined as wine that I like) that is also inexpensive.

We must define what we think is "cheap" wine(keep in mind that this will also vary based on grape type, etc.... Plus, French wine is horribly overpriced now. The California wines are cheaper and ofter much better quality than their French counterparts.) Ok, back to my point :) I think you can find inexpensive good wine around 8$-10$, and expensive is anything over $30 a bottle. Now, can a person who has drank some wine tell the difference between a good $10 bottle and a $2 bottle of jug wine? I would argue that typically yes. Can this same person tell the difference between the 10$ bottle of good wine and the 30$ bottle? Probably not.

I know that expensive does not always equal good and cheap does not always equal bad all the time, but at some point cost to produce and price must come into the mix. If you want to try a bottle of the cheap stuff ;), the australians are making some really good inexpensive wines right now. The Rosemount stuff is particularly good and only around 10$/bottle. The shiraz and a pizza are a really good combo.

Re: your sig

[HiThere]

You left out that the prisoners are slaves, working at about $.20 per hour (assuming that the pay has increased since I last checked).

Ever wonder why there were so many people in the US prisons? They weren't all people that you would have despised as neighbors. Or relatives.

PostgreSQL is not on par with Oracle

[cartman]

Although PostgreSQL is vastly superior to MySQL, it is still nowhere near being on par with Oracle. Oracle has an incredible number of features that are lacking in PostgreSQL. A few of them are:

1. Hot Backups. This does NOT just mean a "consistent snapshot" as postgres provides; it implies a backup manager that can successively apply transactions from a redo log.

2. Asynchronous replication, parallel server, and hot standbys. You claim that postgres does replication however a search for 'replication' on the PostgreSQL mirrors yields no information.

3. Object-relational database features.

4. Extremely adequate documentation spanning ~30 non-overlapping books.

5. Materialized views, transaction savepoints, warehouse queries (cube, rollup), stored procedures in java...

These are just the heavily-used enterprise features; if I listed all the obscure features of Oracle, this post would be very long.

> If PostgreSQL could magically don an Oracular
> CIO-level reputation, the bottom half - or
> more - of the Oracle market would evapourate
> in a few short years.

Oracle Standard Edition is $300 per user. Most corporations would not want to "downgrade" to save $300, since their database is usually a rather criticial part of their operation.

For a webiste, however, you would have to buy an unlimited license ($15,000). For a small website, postgres is clearly a superior choice.

Re: your sig

[zulux]

That's why I make a distinction between 'Criminal Prisoners' and plain ol' 'Prisoners.' You and I probably disagree on what a true crime is, but we both can agree that there are a lot of people in prison who don't belong there. Most pot-heads and prostitues don't need to be in prison for example.

What bugs me is that is costs -$40,000 a year in taxpayer money to house a pedophile. We should be working that pehophile so hard that their work causes a net contribution into the tax coffers. If they refuse to work, then they should starve. Just like the rest of us.

Re: your sig

[HiThere]

Problem is, at $.20 an hour working 24 hours a day wouldn't pay for room and board. It's not unreasonable to require that prisoners work, it is unreasonable to pay them so little. (Of course, I have no idea how much the prison system gets paid to loan out their slaves...but it wouldn't matter.)

Prisoners aren't in a free market labor situation, so they have bargaining power. This guarantees an unfair situation, unless great care is taken to ensure otherwise (as clearly is not the case).

I feel that prisoners should be paid the prevailing wage for equivaltent work in the surrounding communities. And that after they have earned their wages, an amount up to, say, 80% might be deducted to cover the expenses for food and shelter. Then another 10% could be deducted for restitution (which would decrease their debt remaining at the end of their sentence). And the remainder would be left so that they would have some incentive besides being slapped around by the guards to do the work. And, to repeat myself, that they should never be paid less than the prevailing wage for equivalent work in the community where they were apprehended. And that there should be independant ombundsmen, partially paid for by local labor unions, to ensure this.

Re:Why doesn't SAP use it?

[bears]

Well done. You are quite right. According to a CUB brewer I met a few years ago, Crown Lager *really* *is* Fosters, abeit with a hour or two longer in the conditioning tank. Drop it in a bottle, call it 'premium' and sell at juicy markup. The Australian public are comprehensively beer ignorant, and won't notice.

FYI, there's also only a gnat's whisker of difference between VB and Fosters. A couple of hundredweight of dark malt in a grain bill of 5 tonnes. Lord, if it wasn't for Coopers a beer lover could die of thirst Down Under.

Re:Why doesn't SAP use it?

[drsmithy]

Theres an interesting parallel to that one. In Australia, there is the Fosters brand , which only tourists drink, as it's generally accepted to be shiet. There is also the much loved 'crown' brand.

I dunno about "much loved" - maybe down in those southern states :). Personally I think Crown is pretty ordinary myself - particularly for what they charge for it. There are far better premium beers like Hahn, Coopers, Cascade and Boags (my favourite).
For my daily drinker I like XXXX (I was born and raised up here in God's country after all ;) and Toohey's New. Used to be I couldn't stomach VB at all, but at least now I can drink a few before heading back to something with some taste :D.

Re:Why doesn't SAP use it?

[thoth70]

There is also the fine Coopers Pale and Sparkling Ale which could NEVER be confused with the sin that is Fosters.