IBM Sets DB2 Database Free (Beer)

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that in the hopes of winning more developer interest, IBM has released a free version of their DB2 database. From the article: "DB Express-C is the same database as IBM's commercial offerings but the company places limits on what kind of hardware it can run on. It can be deployed on systems with two processor cores or up to two dual-core chips on Advanced Micro Devices- or Intel-based servers. The memory limit is 4GB but there are no limits on the size of database or number of users. "

Comments

MySql Is not free (beer)

[aled]

Alright, I run a MYSQL database at home for my little crappy web server which no one visits because pictures of me visiting Mexico isn't exactly worth typing a number into your browser. All those details aside, why should I switch to either Microsoft's SQL Server 2005, Oracle 10g or DB2?

No reason I guess, unless your site isn't built on open source software, on which case you should be paying your commercial MySql licence.

From http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/:

In their simplest form, the following are general licensing guidelines:

• 
  
• If your software is licensed under either the GPL-compatible Free Software License as defined by the Free Software Foundation or approved by OSI, then use our GPL licensed version.
• If you distribute a proprietary application in any way, and you are not licensing and distributing your source code under GPL, you need to purchase a commercial license of MySQL
• If you are unsure, we recommend that you buy our cost effective commercial licenses. That is the safest solution. Licensing questions can submitted online for our advice, and we encourage you to refer to the Free Software Foundation or a lawyer as appropriate.