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Microsoft Plays Up Open Source

Posted by kdawson on from the coopetition dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Recently Microsoft's open source software lab posted PostgreSQL on Windows: A Primer. Postgres is one of the longest running open source databases — it has been around for nearly 11 years. The powerful object-relational database is a direct competitor to other OSS databases, as well as Microsoft's SQL Server 2005. So why is Microsoft promoting it? I get Redmond's interest in boosting anything that runs on Windows as a platform. Is this simply a case of left-hand, right-hand, or is something deeper going on?"

2 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing to see. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I hate to break this to you all, but Postgres is a competitor to Microsoft SQL Server like DOS is a competitor to Linux. Seriously, people who can get by with Postgres wouldn't buy SQL server anyway - it's not even in the same league. This is like how VMWare gives away VMWare server, the capabilities of their real products that they charge for are so far above and beyond that it's no problem for them.

    1. Re:Nothing to see. by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      Wow, I assume you're trolling. Postgres is a tinker toy compared to MSSQL. Seriously. Tinker toy. Making this claim, as well as the laughably false claim about Windows not running headless (I have one running headless right now in my house) marks you as -1(Clueless).

      Don't get me wrong - sometimes you don't need more than postgres or mysql, and they're great for simple systems.