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TOra Project Looking for New Maintainer
cerberusss writes "TOra is a GPL'ed, QT-based Oracle/PostgreSQL client, one of the most full-featured for many years. The lead developer Henrik Johnson was hired by Quest Software to work further on TOra. After some time of inactivity, Henrik has put a request on the developer list, saying: 'I'm sorry for not being able to spend that much time on TOra as I should. I am now working full time on future versions of TOAD by Quest. (...) I am wondering if someone on this mailing list is willing to step up as a new maintainer of this project.' Also interesting is that the GPL'ed code base compiles for both Windows and Linux, but compiling for Windows is not allowed anymore because of the license of Trolltech's QT."
TOra SOunds INteresting, BUt UNfortunately I DOn't KNow ANy QT, SO I WOuldn't BE ABle TO DO ANything TO HElp, I'M AFraid.
why don't the Window's user just chip in together and by someone -for example the project leader- a Qt license. That way he could build it for Windows, give it for free to the people who donated, and then sell the binaries for anyone who wanted to run it on Windows? Any profit could go towards either being another license if it needs to be renewed or to pay back some of the donators or to hire a full time programmer? Really, because this doesn't sound so difficult and since no one has done it it must meant that it actually is or that I'm missing something.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
So now we're using /. as a means for recuiting developers for OS projects?
In that case, might I suggest Mozilla?
*sigh*
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
Well, in reality, it shows you, once again, why you should never, ever use a proprietary solution in an open-source project.
"Piter, too, is dead."
I'm amused, we just purchased $2,000 worth of licenses.
PGAdmin II. It is based on a mature, open source, cross-platform GUI toolkit and written in C++. And that toolkit does not have any restrictions on where you can compile for it or what you can port it to.
So, it seems to me more an issue with TOras license, than Trolltechs. For example, I fail to see how it should be incompatible with the GPL to link a product with a commercial library, when you don't distribute it.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
I *really* hope a new maintainer can be found, because TOra is my favorite Oracle admin tool set. I don't even use any of Oracle's management console or DBA studio (except for netca) if I have TOra available. My favorite things about TOra are:
1)the UI layout of the schema browser. It has tabs that let you see everything about a schema (and its objects and the data) in one easy place.
2) The extraction utility lets you get a single comprehensive sql script to re-create a database schema and load all the data in one easy step. Absolutely beautiful.
If you are an Oracle DBA or developer, I strongly recommend that you download TOra and give it a spin. I don't think you will ever go back to Oracle Console.
Please, somebody with the right skill-set, please pick this up and mantain it.
This is exactly why QT should not be used in an OSS project. If you want to get real penetration into the desktop today, you have to work on windows. Mozilla knows this, Open Office knows this.
It's really that simple.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Qt is GPL and thus free enough for RMS and that is free enough for anyone (excepting *BSD people).
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
And what have their customers gotten in return? Higher prices (a lot higher) and software bloat.
Have you ever tried to buy a copy of TOAD? The pricing is massive-- it's way more expensive than a copy of Microsoft Office, and does a lot less. They're one of the few software companies that bug me as much as RealNetworks.
It's Qt with a small t, pronounced "cute". Off-topic, for which I apologise, but these things need to get pointed out I suppose or none of us would ever learn.
The GPL specifically prohibits linking with non-Free 3rd party libraries, like the commercial versions of Qt.
Right. So Henrik simply bought a copy of Qt to compile the binaries. According to Henrik, for the distribution, the GPL allows you to exclude libraries, which he did for the Oracle libraries, but chose not to for the Qt libraries. And he has added wording to this effect to the boilerplate to clarify this.
It seems, from reading the threads, that Quest is not keen on the idea of a Windows version of TOra. And from what other posters on this /. list have commented about Quest, I can see why.
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?I dunno, but in my experience both TOAD and PL/SQL Developer offer much better Oracle development/administration environment (and the latter does not cost you an arm and a leg of the former).
As far as TOra'a PostgreSQL support -- that was, agian IMHO, was always lagging far behind PgAdmin or plain psql...
--AP
As a matter of fact, QT open source licensing only applies to Linux, UNIX and MacOS X. The Windows version of QT is not available under a free license.
That may be sufficient for RMS as he is only targeting GPLed platforms anyways, for Windows or cross platform developers this is an altogether different thing.
QT is not free software.
So, Henrik started TOra because TOAD was too expensive for the average developer. Then TOAD hire him to continue working on TOra but, surprise, surprise, he finds himself only working on TOAD... Yet another competitor squashed...
But the folks at kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net are producing a GPL version for windows ... by porting the X11 version and filling out the missing parts.
They seem to be making good progress. I wonder what response Trolltech will give...
... and unfortunately we're all developing on XP machines (although I run a slackware virtual machine). I'm currently rewriting TOra in C# to be released under some sort of GPL type license, with additional support for different database implementations (only MYSQL right at the moment, SQL Server already comes with Query Analyzer). Any helpful suggestions/questions/comments/hate mail (for using C#) can be forwarded on to me. Right now I've only got the SQL window and result set windows operational, but it will be up at sourceforge once it becomes remotely useful.
My company uses Oracle. TOAD and TOra are 2 of our most critical applications.
For Windows users, we use TOAD (+licenses) or TOra.
For Linux users, we use TOra. There is *no* Linux version of TOAD.
TOAD has *alot* of features that I was hoping one day TOra would have. Due to the nature of OSS they would eventually get implemented.
Many of us here are good at Linux and don't need or want to run Windows anymore. Especially with all this talk lately about viruses and IE vulnerabilities.
Please don't let this project die.
-Joe
secret phallus