Sybase Releases Free Enterprise Database on Linux

Tassach writes "Sybase announced today that they are releasing a free (as in beer) version of their flagship database for Linux. The free version is limited to 1 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 5GB of data, which is more than adequate for all but the most demanding applications. This release provides a very attractive alternative to Microsoft SQL Server, and gives developers and DBAs an extremely powerful argument to use against the adoption of Microsoft-based solutions. For those who are unfamiliar with the product, Microsoft's version of Transact-SQL is nearly identical to Sybases's. This high degree of similarity makes porting applications between the two platforms very easy. Sybase is supported by numerous open-source projects, including sqsh (SQL shell), FreeTDS, and SybPerl."

Comments

Re:Better than PostgreSQL?

[pmsr]

You are missing the point. It makes it easy to convert from Microsoft SQL. Imagine thousands of independent software developers with an alternative to MSQL within easy reach. Their entire solution cost is now reduced, and they will sell better. At least the ones that take the chance.

/Pedro

Re:Better than PostgreSQL?

[dotgain]

Great. What for?

Where I'm working, we use MS SQL Server an awful lot. And we write an awful lot of code that uses it. We don't spend any time reading source, or trying to find holes / improvements to it. We're too busy.

They're giving you the product for free, but you don't want it because you can't have the source.

I'm sure they'll miss you.

Ah, more free shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

More free shit to play around with. It's great for them, I play around with it, I learn it.

Soon they will have another tech that knows how to operate it. A small business may end up using it so they can ditch the MS SQL stuff and move to a more robust enviroment. They hire a admin, he needs a assistant? I am aviable, and I trained myself enough to be familar with it.

Whoopie.

Then as the company grows, so will it's need. If it's a decent product then they'd definatly pay for it after using it for year or two for free.

Best damn advertising you can hope to get. Got to love it. Sure beats the snot out of ending up being another MS victom and another footnote in history:
"So and so company had a product similar to the insanely popular MS Widget. Although widely considured superior to MS's solution by a large part of the industry, MS's continued dominace of the desktop arena gave the leverage nessicary too".... blab blah blah

Did I mention I also get some free shit to play around with? (given a choice between free and Free, Free usually wins, but we'll see how it goes)

For those wondering why Transact SQL is so similar

[PhatAir]

MS, Sybase & Ashton Tate jointly developed the core engine up until the mid nineties at which point there was (I believe) a very acrimonious split due to some licensing argument. That was at version 4.2 and so the SQL syntax remains common between the two. Since then I'm sure there's been a certain amount of divergence (and then some!), but it theory porting should be easyish (famous last words).

I used to be a Sybase DBA and still dable with it a bit. It's a very nice db, and at one time was a real contender against Oracle. It still has a very strong footing in the Financial sector as it was deemed to be faster than Oracle. In todays world of cheap hardware and spare cpu cycles I don't think that's quite as important.

Only internal business use

[natslovR]

It can only be used internally, so you can't use it in situations where you may have been able to get away with the hardware restrictions on a small external site or (i guess) distributed to clients as part of your product.

1. USE OF PROGRAMS. You may install and use the Programs solely for your internal business purposes by your employees, agents and contractors. The Programs may not be transferred, distributed, sold, assigned, sublicensed or otherwise conveyed (whether by operation of law or otherwise) to another party without Sybase's prior written consent.

Re:Too risky...

[dotgain]

Closed source

Not all closed source is bad. It's not like you hear of people running Solaris, Oracle and Forte getting owned every day.

no guarantees

If you buy it, I'm sure they'll guarantee and support it. This is a free trial, that you can use for an unlimited period of time

too many limitations

The limitations are clearly stated and simple: you can try it out, for as long as you like. 5 gigs is plenty to test an application on, one cpu is still enough to run a database on.

Some people actually do pay for their software. And I'm sure the same people will be more than happy to buy this DB if, after trying it out for FREE, find it satisfactory or better.

I can't believe how many whingeing morons I've seen tonight saying "Argh! no source!! ev1l!!" and "aww, only five gigs! stingy bastards, I won't be able to run my eCommerce site on _that!_"

Get real. There's plenty of free databases around that you can use, slashdot uses MySQL doesn't it? Piss off and use that.

You probably wouldn't know a real database from a hole in the ground and continue to be bewildered at why some corps spend $50k + on real databases for years to come.

Re:Better than PostgreSQL?

[azaris]

You are missing the point. It makes it easy to convert from Microsoft SQL. Imagine thousands of independent software developers with an alternative to MSQL within easy reach. Their entire solution cost is now reduced, and they will sell better. At least the ones that take the chance.

I'm not sure so many independent software developers use MS SQL anyway, but there has for a while been a light version of MS SQL, MSDE, available for a free download, with most of the features of MS SQL but with similar restrictions to this Sybase offering.

But this appears to be targeted mostly at Linux developers so it's competition for PostgreSQL and the Abomination That Shall Not Be Named.

microsoft would likely prefer you forget...

[bani]

...that microsoft sql server is sybase (albeit 1993 codebase)

Re:Better than PostgreSQL?

[blowdart]

Not really. MS SQL used to be Sybase, and thus TSQL used to match. But since 6.5 Microsoft made SQL Server their own, changed the engine to be more ANSI SQL 92 Compliant (ANSI joins in Oracle? Hah), and now as SQL2005 comes over the horizon they've added more compliance with later SQL standards (although nowhere near fully compliant).

If you're expecting to take a recent Microsoft database script and run it on Sybase without any problems you're dreaming.

Re:Better than PostgreSQL?

[conejoloco]

I have worked with both a few years ago (migration from Postgres 6 to Sybase 11) and sybase performance was outstanding, compared to Postgresql.
I hope postgresql performs better now.

Moreover, this is not the first time Sybase makes this offer : Sybase for Linux 11.0.3 was free to use on Linux, with no limitation.

I personnaly used it for my Web shop, as this database is not only fast and secure, but also quite easy to program with ( especially compared to Oracle ).

The only drawback of Sybase is the lack of standard administration Tools. You have to use a product like (overpriced and windows-only) Emabarcadero DBArtisan.

Re:Limited size makes it worthless

[X.25]

How exactly is it helpful to release a free version that most people can't use in real world applications? The answer is, it isn't.

It seems like everyone here works at (or runs) huge company which works with terrabytes of data. I think it's crap, and reality is that small shop (4 people company, for example, as in my case) can have all their sales/product/tracking/etc. data in less than 100MB (MySQL). At least I do.

I used Sybase (for some ebussines stuff) some 4 years ago, and I quite liked it, but never needed it for myself (expensive :). However, 1 CPU, 5 Gig database is WAY more than I need for my application and data storage. If my shop grows so much that it needs more than 5GB of db storage, I guess I'll have enough money to actually buy full featured version.

Small businesses are the target for this offer, not uber-geeks who have way too much time on their hands, and want source for everything (although they'll, most likely, never look at it).

Re:Dual core chips ?

[mpeppler]

You can use this version of Sybase on a machine with any number of CPUs. The issue is that you can't configure it to use more than one CPU at a time (i.e. you can only configure one engine).

Michael

For the record, Oracle's Speech and Beer

[Plugh]

For the record, aside from the free (as in beer) software downloads, Oracle has also released a bunch of GPL'd and OSS software. IMO, Oracle really doesn't get enough "media play" for this among the Slahdot crowd.

Oracle's Free (as in speech) software

If you saw Chuck Rozwat's LinuxWorld keynote (2 years ago, I think) you'll know that Oracle uses Linux PCs for its base development. Not just for "back-office apps", mind you, I mean a gigantic development environment with THOUSANDS of Linux PCs. The resulting inevitable patches to coreutils, etc, are all on the oss.oracle.com site above, as are Oracle's (GPLed) Clustered Filesystem.