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Oracle To Offer A Free Database

Posted by Zonk on from the nice-if-true dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet News reports that Oracle is likely to announce a free version of its Oracle 10g Database. Oracle Database 10g Express Edition will be free for development and production use, and could even be distributed with other products. What does this mean for the future of MySQL and PostgreSQL?" From the article: "By introducing a free entry-level product, Oracle intends to get more developers and students familiar with its namesake database, Mendelsohn said. Those customers, Oracle hopes, will eventually upgrade to a higher-end version."

5 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. what a wimpy database by defMan · · Score: 5, Informative
    Database XE is free for runtime usage with the following limitations:
    • Supports up to 4GB of user data (in addition to Oracle system data)
    • Single instance only of Oracle Database XE on any server
    • Only uses and executes on one processor in any server
    • Can use up to 1GB RAM
    1. Re:what a wimpy database by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 5, Informative

      This seems like it's aimed at Microsoft's "free" MSDE rather than open source databases like Postgres or MySQL. The specs are on par with MSDE.

    2. Re:what a wimpy database by Dan_Bercell · · Score: 5, Informative

      MS has always offered a free database, MSDE

  2. Re:Move along, move along ... by popeyethesailor · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, Oracle has always been freely available for non-production use.. They even mail out their entire range of software(DB, App server,dev tools etc) free of cost.

    I once received 10g for linux, and the box had every latest release of Oracle software for Linux. They're quite developer-friendly; just as MS is. For production use however..

  3. Still has restrictions by waif69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you look at the EULA you will see that this has a time restriction. "...provided to you by Oracle solely for evaluation purposes until January 31, 2006."

    Obviously this is just a ploy to get developers to write apps on Oracle then, when the application has gotten fat, they will have to pay the fees for a version of Oracle that can support the app or rewrite the whole thing.

    I think that only good reason to obtain 10g is to learn Oracle. If I was working at a company that was moving to Oracle, or at least talking about it, I would DL this to learn it for improved job opportunities.

    Just my $.02.