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Sun Eyes PostgreSQL
Da Massive writes "Sun is looking seriously into the database market - namely PostgreSQL. It says Oracle and IBM and even Microsoft licensing fees are way too expensive for the average punter.
This from John Loiacono, executive vice president of software: "We're not going to OEM Microsoft but we are looking at PostgreSQL right now," he said, adding that over time the database will become integrated into the operating system."
An NFL punter usually makes between $250k to $1M a year. They can handle most DB costs..
No, they can't. That is the problem...
Sun gets to use repackage PostgreSQL however they like, more people will be using PostgreSQL and finding bugs and adding features and writing utilities, more books will be sold, more consulting opportunities - everyone wins.
I've had people contribute code to PMD and say they were only contributing it because they felt the BSD license avoided any possible obligations on their part. And the products that are based on PMD? Just means more books sold. Good times!
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If they take postgres and roll it into the OS- that means the work they do after that wont be coming back to the postgres community? I assume that is the likely course, or am I mistaken?
I like the BSD license, and I understand what the ramifications of it are. And I'm not trying to start a debate over whether this is a 'good' thing or not. Just hoping someone here more knowledgable will give some insight on how this is likely to go.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The average football punter isn't in the NFL.
Unlike all the articles about linux and it's rise as an OS, Open Source databases do not have the same major difficulty. With an OS, every user that uses the computer has to know how to use the system. Conversely, with a database, most, if not all users will not care what database they are using. For example, for my job, I write and maintain a windows application that supports 3 different database back ends. Our clients can care less what database they are using. Only IT and whoever is in charge of the cash will probably care what database is running. In my experiance, IT will not really care what they use because DB issues don't usually take up the bulk of their time. As for whoever is shelling out the money, well that is a toss up, but the trend that I see is that more companies are opting for less expensive DB options.
Again, open source DBs have a chance because not every user works with them directly. Also, the interface, SQL, is a much more standardized interface than with an OS. As a programmmer, writing queries to DB A is pretty darnd exactly like writing queries for DB B. So, I think that their will be much better competition in the database world as in the OS world.
PostGreSQL has none of these issues, and can hold its own in a comparison with Oracle or SQL Server.
Depends, you can't exactly put a product like a RDBMS on a single scale. But in general it makes some sense to compare Postgres to SQL Server, but very little sense to compare either of those products with Oracle; although the limited attention span of most "decision makers" means that in practice the marketing departments of MS and Oracle play that game.
Oracle really really wants people to use Oracle for everything, and in truth you can use it for a lot of day to day database tasks, in the way you could use an eighteen wheeler to take your kids to soccer practice. Oracle's not very standards compatible. There's a million ways it traps you into their product. There's endless ways to shoot yourself in the foot, and getting things back requires a kind of black sorcery. In short, Oracle really sucks, unless it's the only tool that can do the job; in which case it's wonderful. Oracle's built so you can perform heart surgery on the patient while he's running a marathon, for the kind of applications where serious money is lost every time the database hiccups; the kind of applications where you have a team of DBAs who are paid six figures and it's a bargain.
SQL Server, to my mind, is mediocre. It's the choice of the departments who believe thing are easier if everthing comes from one vendor, and it's good enough to keep them out of too much trouble much of the time. From a DBA's standpoint I'd guess it's very easy to administer up to the point it becomes useless; if you never get there, you're happy. From a app develper's standpoint, it's pretty dreadful, but these days the style is to put as much as you can in the app tier so that doesn't matter much as it used to.
Don't know much about Postgres in production environemnts. It seems clean and I like the fact you have a choice of stored procedure languages.
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I've had people contribute code to PMD and say they were only contributing it because they felt the BSD license avoided any possible obligations on their part.
Just like there's plenty of people who only contribute to GPL projects since they don't want "evil corporations" stealing their code.
You can find fanatics driven by ideology rather than common sense in both camps. That's hardly something to cheer about.
the latter is less typing.
Uh, yeah. I think he was referring to the configuration steps after that to get the server running. I personally find PostgreSQL easier (just edit the security configuration files and initialize a database, whereas MySQL makes you jump through hoops inside the master database), but from a zero to executing perspective MySQL is up faster than PostgreSQL.
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Sun gained an excellent database when they acquired Clustra. What happened to it and why are they now talking about Postgres? Are they really that intent on pissing away that investment?
Smile when you say that, pardner!
"Stolen?" No, used legitimately. In fact, as I recall, you used to be able to look at the WinNT ftp client and read the credits to UC Berkely, which aren't even required any more.
"Stolen" just undermines your point that the BSD license allows -- hell, encourages -- this sort of use.
Of course, I think you misread the post to which you were replying, because that poster agreed with you that the GPL includes restrictions absent from BSD.
I'd also check again with regard to XP. I think the Redmond boys may have rewritten that stack by now.
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True, on the surface. However, if they don't then the next time someone modifies that bit of code, then they will have to re-merge their changes. If someone else fixes the bug in a different way, they have to do code review on both implementations and then decide what they want to keep.
There is a reason people like Apple contribute to BSD projects - it's cheaper to get your patches merged upstream than to maintain a fork.
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How many american resturants serve native American food? Hmmm? Thought so.
The article seems a bit heavy on posturing and light on details, almost like it's there to get the message across: fear Microsoft because it competes with its customers.
Otherwise, it seems a bit curious to me, because it juxtaposes two things that don't seem to go together in my mind: High end database management and penny pinching. Prices for Oracle on low end hardware (x86 servers) are not high at all, certainly not high enough warrant any concern at all in any project that doesn't get staff and DBA time free. Once you pay for a couple of professional staff the Oracle license fees are not worth worrying about, if they are even a bit more productive. Prices for Oracle on big iron are shocking to people whose idea of a big software procurement is a couple of dozen boxes of MS Office, but in those environments they are likewise not out of place.
Oracle's licensing model is incredibly byzantine. It takes days of study to get your brain around it. Once you do, what's obvious is that it is a reflection of the company itself: it's a complex machine designed to squeeze every last marginal dollar out of the customer. But -- the reason it works is that the prics are very carefully calibrated so you don't really save any money by going to the competitor. For example, if you just grab the biggest license you can on the x86 platform to make your life simpler, you will pay dearly. But if you are selective and understand the model resaonably well, Oracle is about the same or perhaps even cheaper than SQL Server on equivalent machines. Of course if you don't know what you're doing you'll be accidentally sending Oracle beaucoup bucks, like CA did a few years ago. I assume midrange and high end licensing for Oracle are the same: they maximize Oracle's revenue for the specific capabilities you license from them, and it behooves you to choose wisely.
Of course, no pricing model works for everyone. Perhaps there are people on high end hardware who just need something that is very fast and very reliable, not highly configurably fast and as reliable as human ingenuity can make it. Which leads me to a conclusion:
Talking about Postgres in the context of Oracle and DB2 is probably just posturing. It would be years, if ever, before Postgres gets the kind of features that make Oracle a must have for many high end applications. So I'm guessing this is really aimed at delaying the encroachment x86/Windows/SQL Server on the midrange, by giving a big vendor seal of approval to Postgres, which is plenty good for the kinds of apps you run on SQL Server, and quite a bit better if the hardware is better.
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what does this even mean?
"very easy to administer up to the point of being useless"?
In the same way a car with no steering wheel is very easy to drive up to the point of you having to make a turn. SQL Server's very easy to administer because it only gives you control over the most rudimentary aspects of the database physical design, e.g. creating B+ tree indexes, moving entire tables between databases etc. If this is the limit of the kind of adminsitration you do, then you really can't find an easier to manage product.
i'm no big fan of Microshaft, but it's the choice of people who want to quickly deploy a reasonably scalable RDBMS that has excellent administration tools and is not super expensive... i'm not sure where the conception came from that's "in your mind".
It comes from making feature to feature comparisons. First, let's be clear: excepting their horrible SQL implemntation, I never said SQL Server is bad -- just mediocre. Mediocre (but good enough), cheap, and easy to convince the boss to use constitute and excellent decision in many instances. Whether it is the best choice for you depends on your definition of "resaonably scalable". The admin tools are very polished I grant you. Within the scope of what they do they can be called "excellent". But as excellent as they may be, if you need to do something that the underlying platform cannot do, it doesn't matter. If don't it does.
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...as in beer, which makes it pretty much useless for many projects - such as a competitor integrating it into their OS.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Why do people always forget about ingres, firebird and other great open source databases when this topic comes along. Isn't there anybody who can step in tell us their experience with those?
By the way over the years I have been convinced that MSSQL developers follow postgresql development pretty close. They slowly seem to be adding all features postgres has to sql server. I bet they are even using a bunch of the same code.
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I have used both MSDN (admittedly only for VBA) and the JDK docs, and the JDK docs are vastly superior. MSDN tends to only document the common cases, and ignore corner cases and limitations.
This can't be emphasized this enough.
We develop for/administer both, and it costs Oracle clients probably an order of magnitude more to run Oracle than PG. The environments and apps are different, so it really is hard to compare, but on average, admin and goofy workarounds for Oracle involve adding a zero to the consultant budget, in my experience. As the consultant in question, I must admit that it makes up for the hassle, but...
If you need Oracle, well, you need Oracle. But Postgres is more than enough for 90% of the cases where folks deploy Oracle, in my experience. And it is so much nicer to work with... psql vs. sqlplus, anyone?
Sure, Toad is great, but for $1K/desktop. And it seems like once you give someone Toad, they become incapable of solving problems in sqlplus, which, face it, you're going to have to do. I know this was happening to me for a while, until I noticed it - seems like it leeches one's memory of the contorted v$ and dba_blah joins one needs on occasion, and then you're stuck.
I forget what 8 was for.