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KDE Knoda Meets MS-Access in New Release
An anonymous reader writes "Horst Knorr released a new test version of Knoda. With this release Knoda is the first KDE database frontend reading MS Access databases natively and is getting closer to its goal to be a full replacement for MS Access. Knoda is a database-frontend for KDE. Besides tables and queries Knoda comprises forms and reports, which are scriptable via Python."
MSaccess is used to run alot of small businesses (who think that Access is somehow better than Excel). It would be nice to see if Knoda would also support more db like functionality (like transactions maybe) with autocommit turned on so that it seemed to work like access. Also, if you could make this have some transparent SQL layer so it could be a front-end to real databases (mySQL, etc.). But another barrier for some to migrate has been overcome. Good work.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Hopefully, the intent is to migrate Access installed base off of access and into the sane world.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
MS Access isn't total crap. It is great for data conversion. It's a lot easier to fix a bunch of spreadsheets in Access and move it to a real database like Oracle or DB2. Moving between database types through ODBC is easy and you can clean out rows with a touch of the delete key. There are expensive tools that do the job but why get them when Access does it. Nothing is more painful than dumping to text files and using a tool like Oracle SQL*Loader.
:-)
Having said all that I would never use MS Access for a real application.
Rekall is not a bad database frontend with Access like style, but that can be used with a range of database backends (mysql, postgresql, etc). Like other Kompany products its is even dual licensed under the GPL. See RekallRevealed.Org
Logic is not Divine.
"It appears to either be inconsistently licensed or that the copyright holders of Rekall don't understand what the GNU General Public License actually says."
No; it is not that way.
What they are saying makes sense and is no more than what other people (name Troll Tech with Qt or MySQL AB with MySQL) is already doing: double licensing.
You can get Rekall from theKompany as a GPLed product or you can get it under a "commercial" license.
Of course, if you get Rekall under the GPL, you can modify it and redistribute under GPL terms *but* you cannot call your product "Rekall", since this is a Trade Mark from TheKompany, and trade marks are out of the GPL scope. You can recieve Rekall under a "commercial" agreement and, of course, you will be bound to that agreement.
As you suspect, for this to be possible, TheKompany has to retain copyrights for the whole of the code, so what implicitly they are saying to you is that if you want some patch/modification/etc to be included within the bunch of source code TheKompany names "Rekall" (the "Rekall code base"), you will have to pass to them your copyright over such code of yours. In such a way, TheKompany will retain its ability to double-license the product.
Of course, if you don't want such a state of things you can always start a fork from the GPL code *BUT* you won't be able to call it "Rekall" (a Trade Mark from TheKompany), nor you will be able to double-license your fork (since you won't have full copyrights for that code).
As I told you, just the same that happens with Qt, MySQL or all the code under the GNU umbrella (in this case copyright must be passed to the... was it the FSF or SPI?)
You are on the right track - Office is the front end for SQL Server, but Excel will be the front end tool, not Access. If you need reports, they want you to buy MS Reporting Services. If you want apps, use Visual Studio. Access is no longer part of the plan.
Access was Microsoft's gateway drug. Now that most of the world is hooked, it has served its purpose. Microsoft will keep Access around for the die hard fans and the newbies, but it will never see any real updates.