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Why IBM Open Sourced Cloudscape
An anonymous reader writes "A common and a consistent framework for accessing information enables developers to do more things with more people more often. This article shares how Derby fits into IBM's developer strategy, the Java application stack, its intention to drive more innovation around Java on Linux, and why they want to make the Derby database become as ubiquitous as the Apache HTTP server." (Derby is the new name for the project based on the formerly commercial Cloudscape database.)
The real reasons are probably more in the line:
-They have mutual lisencing treaties with Microsoft as the first versions were developped together with microsoft, thus they canot give away other peoples' code -They probably have other parts of the system lisenced from other parties and thus again cannot give away other peoples' code. -Last but not least: by now they probably just want the thing to silently die as it is not a commercially viable product, but they are encumbered by it.
Let it rot. Seriously, OS/2 is a low-tech kludge compared to any Linux distro and you don't want it. (i286 kernel, no user-security, a single program can lockup the entire system, the list goes on and on.)
IBM has been the open source hero for many but why on earth haven't they opened OS2? Are they just going to let it rot?
We hear this every couple of months, but let's look at the bigger picture for a minute. Why bother? OS/2 code might have been useful to the open source community half a decade ago, but by now we've made significant advances in every major area of operating system and user interface design -- there's simply nothing left in OS/2 that we can make any use of, because at this stage of the game we've already re-implemented it all.
IBM has, in fact, checked a bunch of stuff into the Linux kernel that the did own -- things like zero copy, etc. that may have been (among other places) in OS/2. So we actually did get the things which IBM owned and felt we could make use of. But if the whole OS/2 code base were opened tomorrow, I don't really think it would have much of an impact on anything. Maybe an SCO-style lawsuit from Microsoft, but not much in the technology realm.
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I do not want to pay for a commercial lic to ship a product I develop that uses it. There are other capable, low main, FREE db's out there. e.g. Firebird.
If they had no cost for commercial prod usage, I would be very happy to give it a spin!
IBM acquired Cloudscape as a by-product of acquiring Informix. Open sourcing it is one way to get rid of YADB (yet another database) to focus on their bread and butter, DB2. Probably not a bad deal for them in the sense that it generates lots of goodwill in the community at the same time. Not that I'm cynical or anything.
Eric
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So how does it stack up agains McKoi and HypersonicSQL, both of which are pure java, and "embeddable" databases. Do we need another?
Personally I wish instead of more databases, the various vendors/projects would just decide on common freakin SQL syntax...it's embarassing and stupid to have to many copies of the same SQL scripts that are only slightly different because the keywords are slightly difference.
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Achille Talon
Hop!
The relational model supports any kind of data structure ever invented, but it's true that you sometimes want to store opaque blobs of data such as graphics or XML documents, and most databases, including Derby, supports that as well.
Perhaps you should look at an object-relational mapping layer such as Hibernate or TJDO, or a hybrid object database such as Prevayler.