Sun Buys MySQL

Krow alerted me that MySQL has been bought by Sun. Right now there is only a brief announcement but it discusses what the acquisition will mean for the core developers, community etc.

Comments

I wonder

[BadHaggis]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

Re:I wonder

[goose-incarnated]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

Seconded, thoroughly - in addition I would like some decent gui tools for single-user data-storage requirements; it's annoying that any pc user who wants to maintain a list of (contacts/friends/must-see-movies/must-read-books/etc) puts everything into a spreadsheet.

--
Homo homini lupus

?Every man is a wolf?

Re:I wonder

[cp.tar]

--
Homo homini lupus

?Every man is a wolf?

Man is a wolf to man.

Re:I wonder

[Mr. Underbridge]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

I figured MS was paying them to include the current one to make Access look good by comparison.

Re:I wonder

[Meneth]

Seconded, thoroughly - in addition I would like some decent gui tools for single-user data-storage requirements; it's annoying that any pc user who wants to maintain a list of (contacts/friends/must-see-movies/must-read-books/etc) puts everything into a spreadsheet. I like Notepad with a fixed font.

Re:I wonder

[Firehed]

Seconded, thoroughly - in addition I would like some decent gui tools for single-user data-storage requirements; it's annoying that any pc user who wants to maintain a list of (contacts/friends/must-see-movies/must-read-books/etc) puts everything into a spreadsheet.

Well, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. A spreadsheet is effectively just a less structured database, and given that you're talking about freeform data... and in any case those kind of lists aren't going to have enough data that a spreadsheet becomes inappropriate.

And to be honest, does it really matter what method they're using to make their lists? I'd rather be sent a CSV than a SQL file, and despite being a proponent of open standards, I can still open up an Excel file no problem. Yeah, I'd prefer to see just sharing out a page on Google Docs or just being handed a sheet of paper, but that's life.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office. Wouldn't SQLite be a better choice for that? MySQL is a bit to heavy for use in an office application. SQLite was designed to be embedded into applications, is quite powerful, fast, and released in the public domain.

Re:I wonder

[hey!]

Well, as a database professional, I don't see what's wrong with HSQLDB for the kinds of personal database applications people typically use Access for. The biggest advantage I see, over the fact that Access sometimes delivers the wrong answers to queries, is that if you decide you need a more powerful database to run this little app you've cobbled together, you aren't totally screwed.

The user interface bits of Base aren't as polished as MS Access, but Access isn't really a professional application development platform anyway. If you can do basic forms and reports, and you data can be moved to any other JDBC compliant back end, I'd say that's plenty for the "power user".

Re:I wonder

[ozmanjusri]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

You can already use MySQL as the database engine for Open Office.

The development environment in OOo (Base) is a database client, not a database engine. Base does bundle the HSQLDB database engine, but even that is just XML tables, and shouldn't be used for anything serious.

As far as the quality of Base, yep it's rough, but it's also brand new for OOo v2. It's being actively developed, and there are plansto use it to allow users to share data from several FOSS packages within the suite.

* Btw, I know you were just trolling, but I thought this was worth an answer, since desktop databases are a badly misunderstood class of software.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

And Oracle just bought BEA! Where's all this money coming from, I thought the world economy was just going over the lip of the precipice. Disclaimer: I work at a pre-IPO dotcom where those with stock have been walking around with invisible dollar signs hanging in the air in front of them for the last couple of years... so where the hell is our takeover?! Come on IBM, get your chequebook out! We have more IP than just some Free s/w being run as a service, honestly we do!

Re:I wonder

[MBGMorden]

The problem, from an IT department standpoint, is that such "lists" always seem to grow in their requirements. We had one department that starting keeping a "list" of incoming data for people applying for land zoning exemptions. All these were handled by a single person and she just needed to keep track of them so the spreadsheet works fine right?

Now, fast forward a year. People from 3 other departments need access to an always updated copy of this list. One of them is off-site on a different network. Some people aren't supposed to see parts of the list. Others can see all of the list but they are only supposed to be able to change parts of it.

Now, as you can see, what this has evolved into is essentially a multi-user database app. A very basic one, but still more than a spreadsheet can handle (because a spreadsheet is meant for calculating, not data storage). If they had just come to us in the beginning we could have gotten something working setup from the start, rather than having to worry about going back and recreating it and importing data.

That's my problem with the whole "a spreadsheet is fine" outlook. You can hammer in a nail with a crescent wrench too, but if you do so with a hammer sitting right there in the toolbox I'm gonna consider you an idiot :).

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

For real. What's wrong with keeping addresses in a spreadsheet?

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

"Access sometimes delivers the wrong answers to queries"

Care to, uhh, substantiate that?

Re:I wonder

[bytesex]

Man is a like wolf to mankind; 'man' 'to other men' 'wolf' (is). It kinda misses 'est' at the end, although that isn't strictly necessary.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Randall Jarrell fan?

Re:I wonder

[goose-incarnated]

Man is a like wolf to mankind; 'man' 'to other men' 'wolf' (is). It kinda misses 'est' at the end, although that isn't strictly necessary.

Actually, ISTR seeing this in the fifth elephant - "Every man is a wolf to other men"

???? Whoops - offtopic

Re:I wonder

[bhima]

If you use a Mac try Bento.

Re:I wonder

[squiggleslash]

This is why IT departments need some improvement. Most are made up of hardware people who have a few programmers as friends and by and large are reactive rather than proactive in the way they deal with growth. The worst are the massively corporate entities who assume that the way to deal with any issue is to micromanage everything. I'm not blaming the people in IT for this so much as the people who create and staff IT departments.

How do you deal with the growth of an application such that it no longer is able to serve the audience that it now has effectively? Well, if this were hardware, you'd replace it. And the same approach needs to be taken with software. But that takes people to understand the application, and others to do the time consuming work of migrating people and data over to the new application.

There's nothing wrong with using a spreadsheet to manage an address book to start with. As more people start to use the same source, however, IT departments need to be willing to (and CTO's willing to allow them to) recommend changes, including providing the resources to move the data to a more efficient, more effective, platform. As of right now though, most IT departments don't even have the appropriate people to do that.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

ahhhhh, why so serious?

Re:I wonder

[Shakrai]

I like Notepad with a fixed font.

Notepad is a great storage system. In fact, I have at least ten "New Text Document.txt", "New Text Document (2).txt" files on my desktop right now. One of them has my address book in it.... let's see... is it (6)? Nope, that's my checking account register. Hmm.... could've sworn that was my address book.... shit, I'm overdrawn by $50!

(Laugh, it's not that far from the truth.... got a similar situation with text files in my ~ on my Linux box.... who needs meaningful filenames and directories when you have grep?)

Re:I wonder

[Robert The Coward]

Spoken like someone who doesn't work in IT. I get request the day stuff is suppose to start with the users IDEA of what should work. Not requirements or information and what needs to be done then I get weeks of little issues tiring to make this Square Peg fit into a round whole until I figure out what is going on and replace it with something that works. The problem is IT is the last step in the process not the 1st step and that will always cause issues. Sometime we just can't do what the user thinks is simple. Just this week I had a issue with someone deciding that email made a good real time alert system from an external customer. Problem email isn't real time and/or reliable. So every hick up in email is an issue. If IT was consult we could have either a)set the expection or b)developed sometime that was real time and reliable they could use.

Re:I wonder

[BobMcD]

desktop databases are a badly misunderstood class of software While I agree with you completely, I thought I'd point out how this wasn't always the case. Does anyone else remember Works? Before Office was everywhere, Works was what you got on a new PC. It worked, and worked well, for just about every desktop application I had ever encountered. Back then I had little databases for all my hobbies. Everything was seamlessly integrated, too. As though it was all running inside a single program...

Whomever was responsible for designing that application 'Got It' and implemented it well.

Good memories.

Re:I wonder

[ericlondaits]

Actually, from my experience as a programmer I'd much rather have someone come with a spreadsheet he worked with for a year, and very specific requirements such as "we want some people to be able to see these fields, some people to be able to edit these columns" and so... than to have someone with a vague notion of what he needs and then turning that into a relational database. Even if spreadsheets seem awful, a year's user experience with a fast prototyping tool (i.e. the spreadsheet) is priceless.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

-- Homo homini lupus
?Every man is a wolf?

Man is a wolf to man

Re:I wonder

[Wiseman1024]

SELECT goal FROM life; did not work as expected.

Re:I wonder

[tompaulco]

You can hammer in a nail with a crescent wrench too, but if you do so with a hammer sitting right there in the toolbox I'm gonna consider you an idiot.
Well, as long as we are on the subject, how about the overuse of SQL databases for non-relational information? MySQL is no beast, but in my company, there is a SQL Server on almost every box and many of them are storing stuff that is non-relational and could be accessed more quickly in a direct access file.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I did this a lot in my last job, it's not that terribly difficult, especially with LAMP.

If you're building an app to replace a spreadsheet, the data should migrate in pretty well seamlessly. The worst case I've ever dealt with is having to split the data into a few different tables, which can be scripted easily. If you can't do this, you probably shouldn't be building the app.

Re:I wonder

[misleb]

Seconded, thoroughly - in addition I would like some decent gui tools for single-user data-storage requirements; it's annoying that any pc user who wants to maintain a list of (contacts/friends/must-see-movies/must-read-books/etc) puts everything into a spreadsheet.

Or worse, MS Access of Filemaker. Access databses produced by people who don't know what they are doing are horrendous abominations. I've no interest in having yet another user friendly database system that users can abuse and ask me to support. You want me to support your database? Give me the time, budget, and specs, and I'll whip up a Ruby on Rails front end in no time. But please, for the love of god, don't play DBA.

-matthew

Re:I wonder

[Reapy]

And by the way, I set up a meeting to show the finished [vague notion] next week, get on it!

Re:I wonder

[horza]

Btw, I know you were just trolling, but I thought this was worth an answer, since desktop databases are a badly misunderstood class of software.

I think the point he was making is that now you can take a database traditionally used for servers, double-click on the install icon (Windows, Linux and Mac) and it just installs and runs like any other application. There are bindings to it already available in every single programming language. You can use it via apps locally but install any web server (or link a library providing one into your app) and suddenly it is simple to develop remote web access to your app. It just makes sense.

Phillip.

Re:I wonder

[LWATCDR]

For Linux why not kjots?
Also Google notes isn't bad.

Or you could write one yourself. It could a nice little project to get ones feet wet.

Re:I wonder

[wattrlz]

For personal use, I guess, nothing, but when businesses dump 100,000+ lines into an excel spreadsheet for reporting purposes it has a tendency to get messy.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure didn't see the post as a troll. This arrogrance is crazy. Normal users want a simple database like MS Access yet OO wants people to take responsibility for setting up an additional program. This is actually the biggest hurdle I have to recommending OO to people.

NOT A TROLL

Re:I wonder

[UseCase]

I wonder if this means the LAMP web app stack is gonna somehow have to change?

Re:I wonder

[unoengborg]

No, lets hope not, at least not if they don't do Postgresql as well. Sun allready invest heavily in Postgresql that is a much better product, both with respect to speed, feetures and standards compliance. As of version 8.3 (now in pre release) it have one of the fastest full text engines in the market and XML support, something that perhaps could prove useful in combination with an office suite.

Now, I don't think they consider either Postgresql or MySQL, as they both are database servers, while the database in OpenOffice is supposed to work with out a lot of server configurations in the same way as Microsoft Access works in MS Office.

Re:I wonder

[ScrappyLaptop]

"Who needs meaningful filenames and directories when you have grep?"

...Thank you for one of my new favorite sayings, right up there with Torvald's "only wimps use tape backup...".

Re:I wonder

[LWATCDR]

Actually it really isn't that bad.
For one thing you know know what the application is supposed to do and how it should work.
Importing the data shouldn't be that hard. Every spreadsheet I have ever seen will export CSV or DBF files. Importing those isn't that big of a deal. "Yes I have done it".
Sounds like this application evolved over time an now it needs to migrate.
The interesting thing is I what solution will you use?
Java plus SQL is one of my favorite tools for complex database applications but may be over kill for this.
VB plus SQL. Nice Microsoft lock in but you guys may really know VB and already have it all over creation.
C# plus SQL See above.
Ruby on Rails plus AJAX. Very buzz word compliant.
LAMP plus AJAX a little old school but still buzz worthy.
Or just straight LAMP which if your UI is simple enough should work just fine.

Re:I wonder

[gambolt]

Tried Telico or Treeline?

http://periapsis.org/tellico/
http://treeline.bellz.org/

Re:I wonder

[MBGMorden]

I actually ended up doing a simple LAMP solution for it. It really was just a little basic data storage and retrieval stuff with a few data visibility requirements thrown in. The data import was the main aggravating part, because Excel is completely free form. When a user is doing something like this, you have to account for the fact that sometimes they might feel like typing the phone number in one column and but then later they'll decide to use that for general notes because they didn't have a phone number for that particular row.

That's the main aggravating part of importing Excel data for me. Even in a database app users can misuse fields and have inconsistent data, but large Excel files seem to be just steeped in inconsistencies. You're either left with creating some weird logic to try and fix it, going back and fixing it by hand, or just accepting it and ending up with a database just a screwed up as the Excel data was :).

Re:I wonder

[bckrispi]

Why on Earth would it?

Re:I wonder

[kestasjk]

I just hope they don't change anything.. I don't get how this fits in to their strategy.

Will they try and make it more Solaris-oriented, or what? It's not like they had to buy MySQL to improve its ability to run on Solaris.
How will this affect MySQL's upcoming Falcon engine? How is this going to impact Oracle?

They used to be all about PostgreSQL, putting it in Solaris by default if memory serves. PostgreSQL's BSD license would have let them fork and develop it as they pleased, so why would they want to spend all that money to get the same control over MySQL that they had over PostgreSQL by default?

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

100,000+ lines... ha! Excel does indeed suck at that. I'm still not upgraded, so mine can't handle more than about 64,000 anyway :)

My company had an extremely complicated model done in Excel and it was an absolute nightmare. My favorite is how Excel silently fails on custom functions. I successfully lobbied to get it changed to a web app (PHP and MySQL if you must know...).

I was just wondering what the problem with putting a hundred or so contacts into Excel was. It's a pretty darn useful small database program, you know :) I shudder at the thought of mom and pop putting everything in Access.

Re:I wonder

[ThreeE]

Written like someone who does work in IT [sic].

Re:I wonder

[Blackknight]

Why not just use sqlite? For access type of databases it's a perfect fit.

Re:I wonder

[gambolt]

I use a desktop wiki as my browser homepage. I use moinmoin because I'm a python cultist but there are several others that should work well.

Didiwiki weighs in at 40k and, iirc, has a built-in web server.

It's in the debian and ubuntu repos.

If you use KDE check out Basket

http://basket.kde.org/

Re:I wonder

[MrNemesis]

Might not be what you're looking for, but ever since I discovered Python and SQLite I've found this little tool http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/ to be brilliant.

Granted, I'm not using SQLite to do anything complicated - mostly just as dumb storage for non-huge cross-linked lists but it still seems remarkably capable, very fast and very low on resources, with the GUI providing a nice interface for a quick gander at the data structure.

There's also a Ruby/GTK gizmo here http://rsqlitegui.rubyforge.org/

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel your pain. My main task at the moment has to be to shoehorn a crappy app designed to properly format and fill in letterheads. I won't tell you how much money was spent on this bespoke software.

IT weren't involved until the not-put-out-to-tender contractor told us it was finished, can we have our money please and - fuck me - this thing is a mess. Assumes that everyone here runs as an administrator (tries to both write to program files and HKLM). Uses "encrypted" config files for "security", and no the IT staff aren't allowed to have the decryption algorithm, that would ruin the security (why the fuck does a fucking config file that lists a grand total of four directories need to be encrypted?). Configs don't support environment variables so we're expected to roll out a user-specific config file for each of our 2000 users (setting it at install isn't a viable option because the dirs are suspect to change, and since all the configs are encrypted we can't script a system-wide change to those either). Widgets are designed not to respond to "enter", "tab" and "space bar" intentionally to "avoid mistakes from people who don't use keyboard shortcuts" (and this is software INTENDED to be used by secretaries and PA's). Widget anchors were all wrong so that if you resized the app half the buttons would vanish and you'd have no idea why. Every change we asked to make was stonewalled as "not part of the original spec", until we found out there was no original spec - some bright spark just told them to write an app that does some shit and we'll give you some money, giving them no indication of what our IT setup was like - the first they saw of our company was a week or two before the project was due to ship (about 3 months ago). The person who started this project has since left the company. Quelle fucking suprise.

And, I might add, the developers did practically NONE of the debugging work. None. All me. Because debugging work to make it work with our system wasn't in the contract - they told me we should just make everyone a power user and there'd be no more problems. I had to analyse the executables looking for the bit where he tried to open the key in read/write as opposed to read only [for those none of you out there debugging shitty VBA apps, drop the second parameter from opensubkey()] because they *didn't know how* - although since this company's core competency seems to be pimping out PowerPoint docs I'm not terribly surprised. Turnaround time on a bugfix that we supply them (like the aforementioned opensubkey() change - removing 5 characters and a recompile) took a minimum of 48hrs to the extent that end user testing was impossible and we had to test the whole suite internally (otherwise users get bored of the stop/start testing cycle - if it doesn't go "It's broke!"; "Here, try this"; "OK, that works!" within a day you're hosed in getting valid tests).

And now my boss is being criticised because the project is coming in over-budget and late - apparently it's all IT's fault that we weren't good enough to get the app into a usuable state in time. My boss (in fact, multiple bosses going up to the head of IT) is having none of it and as soon as the "lessons learnt" meeting comes up heads are going to roll - this was a project that should have been an IT dept. thing from the start, mainly due to us being able to implement the (retardedly simple) functionality of this piece of shit for a hundredeth of the cost in-house. This is why said company fucking HAS an IT department. It's pissed of everyone it's come into contact with.

Best bit of it all? Said app won't work with Vista or Office 2007, both of which are tentatively in the tech refresh plans in 18 months time. Not in the contract.

Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up. But it feels good to let off steam.

Posting AC so as to protect the innocent ;)

Re:I wonder

[jorgeleon]

Who needs meaningful filenames and directories when you have grep?

Actually, he has a point.

One of the best features, to my taste, of gmail is that I can quickly find an email with a specific content regardless of the subject. Same thing with files if they are full content indexed.

And that is the way that humans naturally work: "I know what I am looking for, I just don't know where I put it (nor I care where it was)". The folders and file names paradigm is an emulation of the paper archival model. Classes are tough on how to create a mantain one (bookeeping, library, secretaries).

You see, this "order" force us to keep to pieces of information in our head: What is it and where is it. And to use one to get the other.

Of course anyone can create a simple filing system, but it requires some level of self disipline to keep it.

And is not intuitive.

I know what I want... just fetch it!

Re:I wonder

[LWATCDR]

"The data import was the main aggravating part, because Excel is completely free form. When a user is doing something like this, you have to account for the fact that sometimes they might feel like typing the phone number in one column and but then later they'll decide to use that for general notes because they didn't have a phone number for that particular row."
Yewww...
Well first of all Exel is only free form if you let it. You can set the Cell types.
When I have dealt with spreadsheets they where usually done by someone that atleast set up the columns and used them!
Yea you had a mess to deal with and yes I have had more than a few issues when dealing with abused databases.
My favorite was when we where sending out updates to our software.
I had nothing to do with it thank goodness but one of our clerical staff decided to use the second line of the address fields to mark people as having bad credit.
A few lables had the presons name and address but BAD CREDIT in all caps printed on them.
I think the caught it in time.

Re:I wonder

[strong_epoxy]

Spoken like someone who's just entered high school.

The last people anyone wants to talk to about ad-hoc projects is IT. An employee has a need, they fill it with a reasonable tool. Per the GP post, the initial requirements were simple and the solution sufficient. No IT department needed. As the utility of the system increased, so did the requirements, and so must the solution space expand requiring IT assistance. IT should then be eager to help and congratulatory on the success of the solution to date.

It's impossible to divine the future requirements of any system, or even it's success. That's why we iterate.

Re:I wonder

[squiggleslash]

You're not really countering my point. IT departments have major issues with dealing with ordinary user issues that come up because of ordinary growth. This is because they're not structured correctly, do not contain the correct mix of people, are reactive rather than pro-active, and have lack the procedures that would allow them to effectively help the people they serve.

You're saying you have problems in all those areas, and yet my pointing it out is somehow dubious. I'm not blaming you for having those problems, I'm not blaming people in IT in general for having them either; I'm saying the approach we take means you're unable to act effectively.

Look at it this way: You're a fully-trained marine. You've been armed with bows and arrows. Your job is to keep order in downtown Detroit - you know, prevent people from being mugged, deal with illegal parking, oh and your job is to deliver the mail too. How are you going to act in that situation?

Are you going to come to me complaining that "You don't know what it's like being in the Marines Downtown Detroit Unit, the other day this guy double parked while I was trying to deal with some old lady being mugged, who then spat at me", or are you going to ask what idiot politician thought this particular solution to Detroit's problems was a good idea in the first place?

Re:I wonder

[Crayon Kid]

?Every man is a wolf?

More like: "Man acts as a wolf toward his own kind". Gotta love Latin for its brevity.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

man is the wolf of men

Re:I wonder

[epine]

Actually, from my experience as a programmer I'd much rather have someone come with a spreadsheet he worked with for a year, and very specific requirements such as "we want some people to be able to see these fields, some people to be able to edit these columns" and so... than to have someone with a vague notion of what he needs and then turning that into a relational database. Even if spreadsheets seem awful, a year's user experience with a fast prototyping tool (i.e. the spreadsheet) is priceless. I totally agree, as far as your post goes.

OTOH, fast prototyping can just as easily cause a lot problems. By the time you reach the natural limits of the prototype, who pays to extract the data into a preservation format? Did anybody even ask before the "fast" prototype was slapped together whether the data being captured will ultimately require preservation in a properly thought through archival structure? And if so, was this conversion budgeted ahead of time, or does it just show up as a problem further down the road, and effectively bite a chunk out of the IT dept. budget that should have been allocated to a business activity?

I've always believed one of the golden rules of foresight is "whoever created the mess, fixes the mess". In any situation where this rule is violated (e.g. the person creating the mess doesn't have the skillset to fix the mess), maybe some careful up-front design trumps the retrospective knowledge benefits of a fast prototype.

Re:I wonder

[NoOneInParticular]

[gasp]. You actually expect that Sun of all companies would be able to put a decent GUI on top of anything? Okay, well, Oracle's got an ever worse track record w.r.t. GUIs, but Sun takes a good second place. Even with a 13 year lead in the managed application space, they are only now taking the Java GUI seriously.

Be realistic. The path MySQL is going down now would involve configuration and editing through countless sets of webservers, various inaptly layers ending on the word 'bean', 200 xml configuration files, a couple of extra layers of abstraction thrown in the API, just because they can, and only with an additional quad core PC with 16 Gigs of RAM you can only work with your one-core 64 Mb instance of MySql.

Re:I wonder

[omeomi]

As the creator of ZuluPad, I obviously recommend it as a desktop wiki...

Re:I wonder

[Lobster Quadrille]

I'd like to second the vote for Zulupad and thank its creator.

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

Are you kidding? Spreadsheets suck.

Let us recall the original purpose of the spreadsheet, and here I do not refer to the whiz-bang computer application, but the actual paper spreadsheet. It is an accounting tool. Even most accountants no longer use spreadsheets. It is one of the strange additions to the "standard" suite of office applications that at some point a few people in some companies somewhere decided everyone should have access to, and they gave us that hammer, and now my personal data must be a nail because I happen to have a hammer.

No, we need personal database software. The terabytes of data that homes will soon be accumulating require a better storage solution than a spreadsheet. Example: I have memberships on a lot of sites, like here. I can't remember all my passwords. I could keep them cleartext in a spreadsheet, or someone could allow me a means of storing them in my personal DB that a keyring app could hook up to (or me directly, from the mysql prompt, if I have the knowledge to do so and so choose).

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Homo homini lupus - "Man is a wolf to man." It is an old Roman proverb that speaks to the tendency of humans to treat each other like prey.

Re:I wonder

[glebfrank]

Looks very interesting... What kind of programmatic access does it provide? Can I send it a SQL query?

Re:I wonder

[Abreu]

One of the best features, to my taste, of gmail is that I can quickly find an email with a specific content regardless of the subject. Same thing with files if they are full content indexed. Very true... I had to install google desktop here at work just to wade through my outlook inbox... Although I did notice a performance hit.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun doesn't make money from their software. Sun makes money from SUPPORT CONTRACTS for their software. The more marketshare your software has, the more support contracts you sell. The more money your software returns (in form of support and professional services). Postgres adds features and functionality to a base OS bundle, but mysql adds users and support contracts. Now, will it be a BILLION DOLLARS worth? I kind of don't see how it will be, even though Sun is slowly killing ever office in America to replace with people in India and China so it should then be cheaper for them to afford.

This attempt looks as pathetic of a move as "let's do a reverse stock split so people will invest in us!".

Re:I wonder

[cuban321]

who needs meaningful filenames and directories when you have grep? Who needs grep when you have spotlight?

Re:I wonder

[mattwarden]

Man is a wolf to man. homini is dative (indirect object).

Re:I wonder

[mwanaheri]

For real. What's wrong with keeping addresses in a spreadsheet? Well, nothing much -- as long as you don't have many friends. Even most address-databases suck, however, if it comes to people having several addresses including phones, mobile phones etc. Or if you want a convenient way of writing letters, stuff like that.
While I find it amazing for how many purposes you can (mis-)use spreadsheeds, having spreadsheets mailed to me with information not including any calculating ruins my day. It's pseudo-structured information. Reminds me of the mails I get when people send me an 'oh-so-funny' picture -- in a msword document.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Microsoft Access.

Re:I wonder

[BadHaggis]

You can already use MySQL as the database engine for Open Office.

At home all my databases Contact, CD, DVD, and others are kept on MySQL databases with PHP front ends. I also have several documents and spreadsheets which pull off of this data. ;) Yes I was trolling a little, however I do recognize the flexibility of OOo in the database area and have found it to be more stable and usable than the interfaces in MS Office applications. Best thing is the OOo interfaces are stable and will probably be supported for a significant amount of time instead of the flavor of the release interface path that MS seems to be chasing.

The development environment in OOo (Base) is a database client, not a database engine. Base does bundle the HSQLDB database engine, but even that is just XML tables, and shouldn't be used for anything serious.

The only thing I use desktop databases for (Access mainly for work) is data conversion when it has to be done off-line or is being ported to a new application. There have been too many times when someone has come up and said hey I got this Access database can you....web...multi-user...network reports... Then they have the nerve to get upset when the new application doesn't look, or act like there old Access system, but the people who have to use it usually are extremely happy with it.

As far as the quality of Base, yep it's rough, but it's also brand new for OOo v2. It's being actively developed, and there are plans to use it to allow users to share data from several FOSS packages within the suite.

As with any of the OOo applications I would fully expect Base to continue to grow and become more feature rich. The OOo developers have been doing a great job with all of the applications in the package and I can't wait to see the future versions of Base. I would foresee a time (near future probably) where Base is fully capable of meeting any desktop database requirement and would allow for a large number of options which are easy to use, however I'll probably still use MySql for my DB needs.

Thanks for the feedback and for being able to read through a little sarcasm.

B.H.

Re:I wonder

[Robert The Coward]

High School I wish. I worked for 10 Years outside of IT before I moved to IT about 5 Years ago. I have lots of experience on these issues. Since it appears you don't lets review the two examples given.

Example 1. You have someone who created a spreadsheet for her own use to keep stuff straight. It is a pretty good sheet and she references it someone asks her to copy them on it. She agrees and starts sending it to them. Then some else who does something else with that same basic data see it and wants to use the work she already put into it so they doesn't have to redue all that data entry in the end. She agrees and sends to them as well. Now they start to have problem with the data keeping multiple sheets in sync can be hard once it is maintained by more then one person. At some point something will eventually go wrong with the process and they need a better solution so they call in IT. IT gets called in. There is no budget to buy anything for this. There is always one user who will fight you tooth and nail on any changes you make because they are use to doing it 1 way and they hate change. In the end you make something to replace it but feature creep starts to kick in and you start getting tons of little simple changes like find a cure for the common cold(That isn't hard is it?). So you create something to replace it and get those little features added. All is great not so fast. Remember there boss's. They aren't getting there reports anymore because all the data is inside the new system. Now you have to go back and add reports and extra features for them. You finally get all that done just to get a request to create a new users that needs to access the following fields that aren't the same as the previous users. I hope the programmers made that easy but he was under the gun so it take 3 weeks to get that users added and meanwhile you have someone asking for hourly reports on getting this user added with no idea why it takes so long to do such a simple process.

Example 2. This is happen to me right now. Someone from my company works with someone from other company and they come up with an agreement aka contract to handle real time reports over email and clueless user sees nothing wrong with that. After contract are signed I am called in to setup the email address. Now a few weeks later we are close to losing the customer because email is NOT reliable and NOT real time so we are late handling of some of there messages. Pressure is coming down to fix the issue. How do you make email reliable and real time? To make matter worse we charged them $100 to setup as clueless user thought there would be nothing really to setup and that is our min setup charge.

I wish I could say things like this are unusual but they aren't.

Thanks
Robert

Re:I wonder

[petermgreen]

until you want to back it up or email it to a friend or whatever, at which point you have to either get your head arround the concept of dumping and importing or copy files that are in system directories and probablly owned by root. You also have to make sure you don't cause any conflicts with data already on the machine when reimporting the file someone sent you.

All this is much more complex for the user than just having thier database self contained in a single file that they can treat like any other file and open immediately without having to do any importing crap.

Re:I wonder

[Lally Singh]

The OO db app supports multiple backends. So a builtin SQLite backend that's easy to work with, and then (already supported) jdbc drivers when you have to go multi-user.

Re:I wonder

[Robert The Coward]

I agree part of the problem is management but you can't let the users off the hook either of curse IT does stupid things as well. Users will do crazy things. Just the other day I saw a report from someone who opened a port up for an employee so they could do there Job as certain piece of software required a certain port be opened. He didn't think about limiting that port to just a certain IP or address. For those that hadn't guessed it he found several users who setup games to use that port to work around the firewall so the could play games on company hardware using company bandwidth during work hours. He never posted if anything happen to the users over this. Some people wonder why IT sometimes goes overboard and that is a good example of why.

Thanks
Robert

Re:I wonder

[zurtle]

Actually there is stil an immense use for Excel in data processing. As a mathematician, I find Excel excellent for very-short-term data analysis projects. If you need to put the data in a database... you can always dump the whole spreadsheet.

Excel generates graphs very quickly, has quite a powerful set of numerical analysis functions and just works.

Databases aren't the answer when you want fast results.

Re:I wonder

[datadigger]

Tried Telico or Treeline?

I didn't. I wouldn't like to store a normalized version of a straight list with 10000 detail records in an XML structure. An SQLite database will do better.

Re:I wonder

[Linker3000]

My Boss asked me to put the current fixed IT project work into a GANTT chart for him (a quick list on pen and paper obviously being too low tech) so I whipped up a quick summary in OpenProj and emailed it to him together with a link to download the application. Back came a message that he was 'too busy to learn a new application' so would I put it in a spreadsheet for him? Bah!

Re:I wonder

[Bored MPA]

"the wiki notepad on crack"

does that mean you automagically get longer sentences?

*rimshot*

Re:I wonder

[SirSlud]

The point is not that you can always predict the future, the point is that its grossly erroneous not to get people together who *may* need to become involved as soon as possible. Just because you can't predict the future requirements of a system, are you going to willfully attempt to avoid making a reasonable guess? What company gets away without at least making reasonable educated guesses on the future of their business?

I know a lot of those kinds of posts come off as so much whining, but the reality is that, if and IT dept or a programmer can provide a system 100 times more scalable for only twice or thrice the effort required to create the 'non tech' process, then it is probably worth doing now before the process is outgrown - as it often is, usually at the most inconvenient time. (Usually, when systems are outgrown, they are because you're growing or undergoing change .. possibly the worst time in a company life cycle to be forced to be reactive.)

I'm not so down with the righteous tones many programmers/IT folks make regarding the above point, but it doesn't invalidate the validity of it.

Re:I wonder

[rmerry72]

Seconded, thoroughly - in addition I would like some decent gui tools for single-user data-storage requirements...

Then why don't you write one? Open source is open to contributers who want new tools.

Re:I wonder

[rmerry72]

No, we need personal database software. The terabytes of data that homes will soon be accumulating require a better storage solution than a spreadsheet.

We do: we have MS Access.

Its a fabulous low-end database GUI built on a fairly robust RDMS engine for low volume usages. Best thing is every Windows 2000\XP\2003+ machine has ODBC drivers built in (not sure about Vista). Easy to build your own little apps or more advanced VB/.NET interfaces if your inclined. Hell, I built a J2EE shared calendar and multi-media catalog using an Access database as a start and it has worked butifully for the last 5 years.

Not on the same level as PostGres or (arguably MySQL) or a commercial RDMS but a great step up from a spreadsheet. Been around about as long too.

Re:I wonder

[rmerry72]

Or worse, MS Access of Filemaker. Access databses produced by people who don't know what they are doing are horrendous abominations. I've no interest in having yet another user friendly database system that users can abuse and ask me to support.

Don't blame the tool because people use it inappropriately and then ask you to fix it. Access does enable a lot of people who would otherwise not be able to accomplish smaller database-type tasks and apps. Don't need to be a DBA to build a simple app with a couple of forms and tables.

I've built a lot of VB and Access apps with success. I've also built large scale J2EE systems with multiple forms, workflows, users and massive amounts of data clustered over multiple servers, domains and even countries. Some business needs can be settled by the first, some by the second, some by the first then the second. Horses for courses.

People still use hammers to nail in screws and then complain to carpenters when their shed falls down.

Re:I wonder

[misleb]

Don't blame the tool because people use it inappropriately and then ask you to fix it.

What is this? Some kind of stock response? Didn't you read what I wrote?

"Access databses produced by people who don't know what they are doing are horrendous abominations."

Re:I wonder

[kcbrown]

Well, as long as we are on the subject, how about the overuse of SQL databases for non-relational information? MySQL is no beast, but in my company, there is a SQL Server on almost every box and many of them are storing stuff that is non-relational and could be accessed more quickly in a direct access file.

"Accessed more quickly"?

Maybe. But there are advantages to storing it in a SQL database:

1. If you suddenly have to relate your data to other data that's already in the database, you don't need to do a lot of extra work to make it happen. Namely, you don't suddenly have to convert the original data to a database, rewrite the app to work with it, etc.
2. You don't have to write code to parse the data into fields, etc., because the database already hands it to you that way.
3. Searching is relatively painless -- just use the appropriate WHERE clause. Even full-text indexing can be had for "free" if the database supports it and you use it.
4. Performance tuning becomes a matter of creating a few appropriate indexes, assuming the application isn't doing something stupid.
5. The tools to view and manipulate the data outside the application itself are already written and well-known. More to the point, you don't need to use the application itself in order to manipulate the data like you would if you were using some app-specific file format.
6. If you weren't stupid in how you wrote the application, you can change database engines without too much pain if that proves to be necessary/useful.

It doesn't take much to be better off sticking your data into a SQL database even if your data isn't relational in nature, as long as the data relationships you do have are relatively straightforward.

Re:I wonder

[Max Littlemore]

I have at least ten "New Text Document.txt", "New Text Document (2).txt" files on my desktop right now. One of them has my address book in it.... let's see... is it (6)? Nope, that's my checking account register.

Yeah, I used to have a similar problem until I figured out the perfect solution.

First of all, create a directory for each file on the Desktop. Next, open all of the files until you find your checking account register, right-button drag the file to your newly created "checking account register" directory and select "Create shortcut here" from the menu that appears when you drop the file.

It will take a little bit of time to start with, but it's certainly worth it. For example, to open your checking file register, all you have to do is open "checking account register" on the desktop and the open "Shortcut to New Document (6).txt"!

Don't thank me. The knowledge that my small insight has helped another human being is all the thanks I need.

Re:I wonder

[WWWWolf]

One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

Oh God, no, please don't make OO.o install any bigger than it already is. It's a wonderful piece of software. It's just... a little big big as it is. You really should see the incredible pace it run on my old 32 meg laptop. =)

$ apt-cache show libhsqldb-java | grep Installed-Size
Installed-Size: 1104
$ apt-cache show mysql-server-5.0 | grep Installed-Size
Installed-Size: 82704

...and let's not forget the fact that MySQL needs a separate daemon process, separate installation, and for security reasons, some rudimentary user education on dangers of running random daemons on your PC (while trying to convince MSOffice expatriates that Yes, This Really Is More Secure Than That Piece Of Junk And Needs No Additional Training Or Worries At All).

Plus, if you want OO.o + MySQL, you can always use the ?DBC connection.

Re:I wonder

[robfoo]

I found out a potential reason behind the 'funny picture in word document' thing the other day. I sent my dad (who works at a govt dept) an email with a picture attached, and he replied with 'all pictures get stripped out of our emails. the workaround is to put the picture in a word document'
So I blame Corp/Govt email policies - pictures are obviously just (potentially offensive) time wasters, but Word documents are business, and we all know how quickly workarounds like that spread in corporate offices - much like using spreadsheets for data storage! Ha! I related it back to the topic! Wait.. what was the topic again?.. :)

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Man is a wolf to man. There's an implied 'est' as for epithets generally.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up writing DB's in works 2 for dos on an 8088 laptop with 1MB memory/storage. It was so simple.

It's always irked me it's not so easy to get a simple database with a frontend under Linux.

Re:I wonder

[fm6]

Technically speaking, you're correct on all points. But you're overlooking a political/social problem: most people just don't grasp the difference between a spreadsheet and a database. This includes a lot of programmers, but the real problem is that it includes almost all non-programmers, even people who are relatively tech-savvy. So if you tell them to go create, say, a mailing list in MS Office, they'll use Excel rather than Access, because they grok Excel, and they don't understand why Access even exists.

(Not an endorsement of Access, which is a really crappy desktop database. FileMaker is superior in every way, though it lacks any real market penetration. Most people just don't understand what it's for.)

Once in a tech writing group, I was assigned to work out a way to store a huge amount of automatically generated data that would be the basis for documentation. Everybody assumed that I'd use a spreadsheet, but I knew that wouldn't fly. So I wrote a little program to feed the data into a relational database. Everybody though I was freaking genius. Ironically, this was at a software company that created tools for (among other things) database programming!

Re:I wonder

[rjstanford]

The only question I have, is... what about the thousands (or more) of Excel spreadsheets that the department created that didn't evolve into a multi-user database application? The hardest thing is identifying the tipping point reliably. I don't think that anyone really differs with the correct way to handle things clearly on either side of that point.

Re:I wonder

[noamsml]

Actually, I use a text editor to jot down all sorts of data that I want to maintain. It's easy, it's quick, and it's portable. And yes, sometimes I even use tabs to put tabular data into my text editor (since in most editors tabs jumps to the next tabpoint [whatever they're called], it works rather smoothly). It might be an abomination, but it takes less time than jotting it down with MySQL queries.

Re:I wonder

[rmerry72]

What is this? Some kind of stock response? Didn't you read what I wrote? "Access databses produced by people who don't know what they are doing are horrendous abominations."

Not trying to start a flame war here but yes i read the quote and that's my point. Why not say "Anything produced by fools are horrendous abominations." Or is only possible for fools to create bad Access apps? What is your point? And what's your point about my point?

Sounded like you had a gripe about Access and how easy it lets fools build foolish things - a common attitude on Slash - to which the standard answer is "they should not build tools to make it easy for stupid people to stupid things".

Re:I wonder

[Darby]

Who needs grep when you have spotlight?

Does Spotlight support regular expressions?

I honestly don't know, but if it doesn't, there's your answer ;-)

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

Hear, hear... whatever the origins of the spreadsheet, it's a damn useful scientific/engineering tool. It also, despite some people's contentions otherwise, make a damn fine keeper of short lists. Finally, it's a much better table maker than Word, which is embarrassing and shameful... but there you go.

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

The funny thing about pictures in Word/Powerpoint is that I actually don't mind this format now that I'm a Gmail user. Gmail has a great PowerPoint viewer built-in, so you don't even have to fire up PowerPoint - and it is quite fast.

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

Have you seen what contractors use hammers for these days? It's not driving nails. They use them to wreck stuff - almost strictly demolition. They've even started changing the design to be more friendly to ripping stuff apart.

My point is that a tools use can change over time. MS Excel today bears only a passing resemblance to VisiCalc. It has tools like a button that alphabetizes a list in one-click - and in fact even has a list management function. I don't use Excel for passwords or addresses, but I do use it for all sorts of non-financial uses every day and it is great. I use it to prototype and double-check formulas in software code. I use it to demonstrate changes graphically to people. I use it to create CSV files. I use it to clean up data. I certainly won't fault someone for sticking an address into it and hitting the "Sort" button once in a while. Downloading something like Palm desktop is way overkill for a simple list of addresses. Lots of people just keep a flat text file. My mom still has an actual book from the 70s.

I happen to use a Mac, which has an excellent address book and password storage utility built-in, so I don't need Excel for those tasks :) Firefox also keeps most passwords in a file somewhere.

Re:I wonder

[lsolano]

I like Notepad with a fixed font.

I've got my company's phone directory in a text file with a shortcut in my task bar. Nothing loads faster.

Re:I wonder

[!eopard]

What happened to your governance and change management processes? Example 1: Have a single person from the business be your contact point, and they have to nut out the requirements of the system. Put the onus back on them. No IT budget for this work? Not IT's problem, the business wants extra work done, they pay for it. Oh, you don't do it that way? You're screwed - leave, get it changed, or have someone with clout to prioritise the work of the operational people that do this type of work. Example 2: Any IT related projects should have at a minimum certain touch points in your process that head off these issues. Again - put the onus back on the business. Do some research and advise how much it will cost to make e-mail real-time & reliable(ha!). Let the busines decide if they want to spend that much money or cancel out of the contract.

Re:I wonder

[shokk]

There are databases with GUIs like ListRing/EdgeRM (uses MSSQL Express) available to PC users. http://infogenium.com/

Re:I wonder

[Bilbo]

> OTOH, fast prototyping can just as easily cause a lot problems.

I always called those things, "Un-dead Prototypes." You know -- the ones that were never intended to do more than demonstrate some functionality, but they somehow morph into "production" applications, and it's the IT department that's left cleaning up all the gore and trying to keep it running. Had a couple of those hung around my neck in my days.....

Re:I wonder

[Nefarious Wheel]

No, we need personal database software.

Absolutely correct.

Even most accountants no longer use spreadsheets

There is certainly better software for accountants, but I'd take strong exception to your statement, having worked in a very major bank that ran it's managed funds basis on Excel plus macros plus VBA. The idea was you could wrap the spreadsheet around a rock and throw it anywhere (it's a metaphor, guys! A metaphor!). You can survey 10 different accounting firms and get 10 different accounting packages, but they all recognise the spreadsheet. What I think we need is a spreadsheet front end to a decent transactional relational database, such as Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 or something equally transaction-oriented. I wouldn't spec MySQL up front because I'm not aware of it's transactional atomicity characteristics.

Re:I wonder

[vandan]

I'm working on it:
http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis
In particular, see the 'future' link.

Re:I wonder

[vandan]

No, we need personal database software.

Try: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis. See the 'future' link for an up-coming GUI builder.

Re:I wonder

[FST777]

I once was in the situation that "they" expected me (that is: IT) to get something to work that just wouldn't. After some tinkering with settings, macro's and scripts I told them it couldn't be done (since the app was at fault, and not at my disposal to correct). They told me it was my damn job and that it should be done regardless, within a ridiculously short time frame. They were actually mad at me for the faults of the newly bought (without my knowledge) app.

Fearing the same situation as your staff is in now, I told them: "if you are planning to fire me over this and put me to blame for your bad judgment while buying this piece of crap, you better get started on writing the letter right fucking now."

Since then, situations like this has happened (but mostly I am in the know before something is bought), but when I say it can't be done, it can't be done.

Re:I wonder

[OscarGunther]

If they had just come to us in the beginning we could have gotten something working setup from the start, rather than having to worry about going back and recreating it and importing data.

Sometimes users don't know what they need until they've had a chance to play with what they think they want. Sometimes users don't know the full set of requirements at the outset.

Re:I wonder

[Panaqqa]

This is the exact reason I can foresee domain names actually becoming less and less important (and valuable) with advancing time. As search engine's crawlers get more powerful and results better targeted, it won't matter any more if the data you want comes from "ghr664-32jyz5.com".

Re:I wonder

[rjstanford]

So why didn't you just send him a PDF of the chart, created through OpenProj? That would have given him the information in a useful format, and allowed you to use the tool of your choice to create it, without needlessly antagonizing your boss...

Re:I wonder

[JBHarris]

Who needs spotlight when my XP machine has this cute little dog. He can't find shit but he's cute. And he woofs at me.

Re:I wonder

[Linker3000]

Who says I didn't send him a PDF?

Actually, I sent him one plus a hard copy in his mail tray + I installed dotproject so he can see things online.

Re:I wonder

[Firehed]

That's a completely different scope of work. Spreadsheets are fine for personal use. Even sharing with one person can get hairy unless you have version control in place - and if you're smart enough to set up version control, you'll already be doing this with a DB. A list of what movies you want to see isn't generally a multi-user collaboration.

Though if policy allows it, a Google Spreadsheet could still apply fairly well in this kind of situation. It retains all of the freeform flexibility of a spreadsheet while giving the availability of a DB-driven app. Presumably if you'll have access to a networked, DB-driven app (whether it's a web page or a standalone exe), you'll have web access. Might as well make that work for you and go with something that already exists.

Re:I wonder

[phoenix_rizzen]

Example: I have memberships on a lot of sites, like here. I can't remember all my passwords. I could keep them cleartext in a spreadsheet, or someone could allow me a means of storing them in my personal DB that a keyring app could hook up to (or me directly, from the mysql prompt, if I have the knowledge to do so and so choose).

It's called the KDE Wallet. :) It stores usernames and passwords for anything that requires it, whether it be local apps, remote apps, websites, or whatnot. There's even a mini-text editor in there to keep free-form text if you want. You can even have separate wallets for online vs. local info. And it's accessible to any and all KDE apps.

Each wallet is protected by a separate password (or you can configure the manager to use a single master password), and the contents are stored encrypted on disk.

Now, if only someone would port this to Windows, and Mac, and add hooks for non-KDE apps to access it.

:D

Re:I wonder

[BadHaggis]

Homo homini lupus - "Man is a wolf to man." It is an old Roman proverb that speaks to the tendency of humans to treat each other like prey.

You've won the prize! Please email the editors with specific delivery instructions on where you would like you're lifetime supply of slashdot news delivered, oh and by the way please include all of your pertinent personal information as I have $35 million in an off-shore account of which I will give you 10% of if you will help me invest in profitable business opportunities..

B.H.

Re:I wonder

[Knara]

Just a note, make sure that Google Desktop isn't trying to index your mapped drives. We noticed that performance hit on some people's machine and it can be quite noticeable depending on the system in question (not the mention the systems guys are just *overjoyed* at the idea of dozens of desktop clients indexing their network storage devices).

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

I was waiting for this reply. :-)

This proves my point precisely. The spreadsheet has somehow become the application that stands in as a kind of generic app when people don't stop to think about using something more appropriate. By suggesting a better application than Excel to store passwords, you've shown one example in a never-ending stream. What I mean to say is: no matter what scenario one comes up with for using a spreadsheet, I can come up with a different, better application.

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

Augh! No!!!

My wife's biotech company recently asked one of the scientists to take over the database. When I asked why the company would want a scientist to own a database when they have a perfectly capable IT staff, my wife's coworker (our friend) replied: Oh, because the IT staff doesn't understand the data. You have to understand the experiments and how the data is collected in order to properly load it into the database.

Wha?!, I wondered. Why on earth would someone loading data into a database have to understand that data in order to load it properly? In fact, why is one loading data into a database manually to begin with? And what form is the data in prior to being loaded? The answer to all these questions became clear when our friend explained that the scientists are the company tabulate all their data in Excel spreadsheets, from which the columns must be mapped into the database. For each experiment, the scientist creates a new spreadsheet and more or less randomly orders the columns, so without an understanding of experimental procedures one could not make sense of the data and know how to load it properly.

Um, I wonder, Why are they paying a scientist's salary to screw around with spreadsheets and learn IT functions when you could be doing science? Why don't they just hire a programmer to write a simple app that allows scientists to input data (or import data directly, in the case of a scientific apparatus that can output the data in a known format) to the database? This would certainly be cheaper than this on-going, error-prone process of doing things in which each scientist maintains their own spreadsheet templates and tweaks them for each and every experiment.

Well, she replied, this is how all of the big biotech firms do it. And she's right. I've talked to people since that have worked at Genentech, AmGen, Novo Nordist, etc, and they all do the same stupid thing. And they all keep the data in the database in a fixed schema (it differs from company to company, but all experimental results are eventually pushed into the same DB schema across the company as a whole).

This is my problem with spreadsheets. They're not very good at doing calculations (unless you like looking for typos). Mathematica/Maple for computations and Minitab for statistical analysis are far better apps for doing everything from quick'n'dirty calculations to extensive mathematical work. Spreadsheets are not very good for most of the things they're used for—expense tracking, project scheduling, budgeting, address book, the list goes on. The ubiquity of the spreadsheet has inhibited the spread of proper solutions more than any single other piece of software I can think of.

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

I use it to prototype and double-check formulas in software code.

I use a debugger and unit tests for that.

I use it to demonstrate changes graphically to people.

I agree that this is a good use for a spreadsheet, provided you don't keep the data driving the graphs in the spreadsheet itself. Unstructured data bad. And this is temporary. I know of at least a few companies that are working on good, intuitive visualization software for business and home users in which one can quickly create graphs over generic data. Most of the time, though, if you're using a proper application to keep your source data and there is a strong visualization requirement, the app itself will provide it. Financial packages like Quicken that provide pie charts of your personal finances come to mind.

I use it to create CSV files.

Why would anyone want a CSV file? This is purely an interchange format like XML—these were never intended to be persisted to disk for long-term storage, it's merely an intermediate format to be used between two other, useful formats. (Yes, I know that XML is also persisted to disk and now considered a permanent data format. And it's one of the things holding back the world.)

I certainly won't fault someone for sticking an address into it and hitting the "Sort" button once in a while.

I would. Use your gmail contact list. Or -shudder- use Outlook's address book. Then you don't even have to hit "Sort".

Lots of people just keep a flat text file. My mom still has an actual book from the 70s.

Lots of people make lots of mistakes. That's no reason to adopt mistake-making as a lifestyle.

I happen to use a Mac, which has an excellent address book and password storage utility built-in, so I don't need Excel for those tasks :) Firefox also keeps most passwords in a file somewhere.

Here you're agreeing with me. Excel sucks for that stuff, so you're using applications that don't suck. If you really think hard about it, I'll bet you'll be hard-pressed to come up with a use for Excel that there isn't some better app available.

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

Unfortunately, this kind of software isn't going to achieve widespread penetration unless someone can build a schema simply and intuitively without having to know how databases work. I don't see why this shouldn't be possible either. If I'm creating an address list there's no reason why I couldn't put in a sample, drag over the text and say, "This is a person. It's the central thing of my entry. Here's the first name, last name, title, relationship to me. Here's the address. There could be many of these for each person. Here's the street number, street name, unit, city, state, zip, country. Here's a phone number. There could be many of these for each person. Here's the area code, exchange, suffix, and extension..."

In this way, using a single example and highlighting the various parts of the data and relationships, the software could build a schema that could store the information. Later, if I encounter a new type of address that I hadn't anticipated, the software could either change the schema and map the old data into the new schema, or just create another schema to the side for those exceptional cases. The point is that all of this could happen under the covers, the data would be as structured as I desire it, and any app could hook up to the same data source if only I'm willing to provide the mapping. (This mapping could be easy too—a new app unfamiliar with my particular schema could just display a sample entry and ask me to match up the terms that app uses with the parts of that sample entry.)

An address book isn't even the best use case for what I'm talking about, as there are plenty of apps already out there that provide this functionality. But it ought to be easy for me to quickly create a way of storing data in a structured way that I define that I can import/export in any way I wish, sort, select subsets, do simple visualizations, run quick calculations, keep securely, and use as a long-term storage solution if I so choose.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

If I am reading the information correctly, this will be the new db: http://hsqldb.org/

Re:I wonder

[misleb]

Why not say "Anything produced by fools are horrendous abominations."

Because my experience is that Access, more than most other complex pieces of software, tends to end up in the hands of those without the proper skills (I won't say fools, as you do). At least in part because it is packaged along side relatively simple office tools. And I have to support it. Yeah, I'm a little annoyed by it. You got a problem with that?

Now, maybe if I had a man with your J2EE/MS Access/VBA/ prowess as a coworker it wouldn't be a problem, but you're there and I'm here supporting MS Access and Filemaker abominations.

Or is only possible for fools to create bad Access apps? What is your point? And what's your point about my point?

My point is that you made it sound like I don't acknolowedge that the source of the bad programs is the users. You just went on some stupid rant which you probably just copy/pasted from the last time someone criticizes a programming lnaguage or other tool.

Sounded like you had a gripe about Access and how easy it lets fools build foolish things - a common attitude on Slash - to which the standard answer is "they should not build tools to make it easy for stupid people to stupid things".

Buzz off, troll. I don't need your "standard answer." Why don't you try making an insightful and engaging reply next time.

-matthew

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

The thing is, you don't always have to use the best tool for the job. The other day I took apart an external Seagate drive using a #2 flathead screwdriver even though the drive had safety torx screws holding it together. Yeah, it took me a little longer than it would have with the proper safety torx driver, but it saved me $15 and 2 days of waiting.

The same applies to software. I'll use addresses for example. On the unix system at work, we used to use Netscape for mail, web, etc. When I migrated off of that system, I exported the address book to LDIF, CSV, and Tab-Delimited just to be safe. For a long time - until I figured out the circuitous way to get my addresses into a better format - I just maintained the CSV using Excel. It wasn't ideal, but it did the trick until I found something better (Outlook contacts - prior to that my company used CC:Mail, which wasn't worth moving to since they were replacing it).

Why would anyone want a CSV file? This is purely an interchange format like XML First of all, I WAS using it as an interchange format. That's exactly what I last used CSV for - taking a mailing list out of another application, bringing it into Excel, saving it as CSV, and then sending it to someone else. If it were a bigger list, Excel would not have been appropriate - but it was only a few thousand addresses so Excel did the trick. Second of all, CSV is a lot more future-proof than XLS. I can write a CSV reader in a few minutes - hours if you want to make it pretty bulletproof. Hell, languages like PHP even have Excel-style CSV parsing built-in. A CSV file is just data - I don't know what makes it so unsuitable for storage. It's not the most space-efficient format, but zip largely takes care of that.

Lots of people make lots of mistakes. That's no reason to adopt mistake-making as a lifestyle. An address book that has persisted since the 70s is a mistake? What should she have done, bought a mainframe to keep her addresses? The options for address books were mostly paper back then - and it's hard to fault a format that is impervious to hard drive failure. I'm a child of the 70s, so by the time I started accumulating addresses computers were plentiful - but I can hardly blame her for not typing hundreds of addresses into a computer! Talk about marginal return on investment...

Here you're agreeing with me. Excel sucks for that stuff, so you're using applications that don't suck. I didn't say that Excel sucks for that stuff, I said that I had better options. Hell, I said that I know people who keep their addresses in a flat file - and even I convert the company phone list to a flat file so that I can grep it quickly. Whatever works, man - no skin off my back.

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

Heh, when I asked my company for database support, they told me I had to use their big Oracle system. Yikes! Talk about overkill - the application I was porting over was formerly housed in a single Excel spreadsheet. IT instead let me just set up a MYSQL server, an Apache server, and PHP on one of their Sun boxes. So I guess I'm in the same boat, though not really for the same reason.

You list a bunch of applications that the spreadsheet isn't ideal for, but the solution would be to have a custom app for each function. Expense aside, you should be able to see how learning one versatile application is more appealing to people than learning a separate application for each little task. I generally only branch out from the spreadsheet once it becomes clear that it is unsuitable (like in my MYSQL example above). If I'm just going to sit down at the microscope and take a few hundred measurements, I'm not very likely to write a custom data-entry app!

Re:I wonder

[biovoid]

Unless that's the domain name of the search engine...

"Hey man, what's the capital of Albania?"

"Dunno.. just G-H-R-six-six-four-dash-three-two-J-Y-Z-five it dude..."

Re:I wonder

[Meski]

No, we need personal database software. The terabytes of data that homes will soon be accumulating require a better storage solution than a spreadsheet.

We do: we have MS Access.

Excuse me for a moment whilst I vomit into someone else's waste-paper basket.

Re:I wonder

[shadwstalkr]

This day is already here for the vast majority of computer users. I've seen some very bright people type "yahoo.com" into their browser's search bar, then click on the yahoo link in google. This is every time they check their mail, presumably because they never learned about bookmarks. It might sound ridiculous, but it is far more intuitive for someone who doesn't understand (or care) what URLs are. One box only works now and then. The other box works every time and always in the same way.

Re:I wonder

[Zebra_X]

well put

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

I don't mean most of my post aimed at you personally. I'm only trying to make the point that, today, most of the time people spend using computers is moving things from one place to another that should be automatic. If we demanded better from our machines, we'd get better results. If someone, somewhere in the world types in their address, that ought to be it. If I know that person and that person wants me to have their address, I should have it. And when they update it, I should get the new one automatically. That's the promise Internet. So where's my Internet?

I want an address book that lets me specify the OpenID URL of the person I'm interested in, and then the profile info that person has chosen to share with me is what I see. When they update and want me to see the new info, I see it. No typing, no pretending I'm using some paper address book from the 1960s. I'm using a computer, and I want it to serve me.

I just don't see how this future is ever going to happen if people think Excel is a reasonable solution for keeping addresses. Ooh look! It sorts!!! Big flaming donkey pile, I say.

Re:I wonder

[severoon]

But my point is beyond what you're saying. If your aim is to enter the information and never retrieve it again, or limit yourself to a particular limited form of retrieval for the rest of time, great. But for the amount of work you're doing by loading Excel and knowing Excel and dealing with Excel, shouldn't your expectations be higher? Computers are supposed to be work multipliers— if I spend as long putting an address into my computer as I used to, writing it in an address book, shouldn't I get more bang for the buck? Or is this machine just a $1500 address book when used for that purpose, but at its core no better than a real address book?

Re:I wonder

[MightyYar]

Not everyone needs much more than a plain address book. Excel offers some advantages over the paper version: cut-and-paste, no need for scratching out changes, easy alphabetization, easy backup, won't wear out or degrade, never run out of space. I don't know how much time you spend keeping your addresses up-to-date, but for me I'd wager that it's a few minutes per year. There's not much effort to be multiplied there.

I'm not sure that your "OpenID" thing is such a great idea, anyway... I mean, we all protect our SS# like it is pure gold and fight a federal government-issued ID tooth and nail. I think you'll find tepid response to such a concept no matter which way spreadsheet usage swings.

Re:I wonder

[rmerry72]

At least in part because it is packaged along side relatively simple office tools. And I have to support it. Yeah, I'm a little annoyed by it. You got a problem with that? Now, maybe if I had a man with your J2EE/MS Access/VBA/ prowess as a coworker it wouldn't be a problem, but you're there and I'm here supporting MS Access and Filemaker abominations.

Sounds like my troll was right on the money. You do have a chip to bear because you do have to deal with the results of others forays with the tool. Therefore, its the toolmakers fault for allowing it, or at least for marketing it. No need for an insightful comment when the standard answer is right on the money. Perhaps another standard answer will hit the mark as well: DBAs crying "Access is not a database!" Might as well scream "Notepad is not an editor!" or "Volkswagens are not cars!"

Im a sun employee

[Mark Atwood]

First post!

So now I'm a Sun employee. Interesting. No more BK at MySQL.

What all this means, I'm sure I'll be learning the hard way very soon.

Re:Im a sun employee

[morgan_greywolf]

No more BK at MySQL. Are you saying that Sun employees don't eat Whoppers? Does Sun have stock in McDonald's?

Re:Im a sun employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations! Sun has a popular product at last.

They stand to make a lot of money off this acquisition.

Re:Im a sun employee

[perdelucena]

mv JavaDB MySQL

Re:Im a sun employee

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Are you having a Whopper Freakout yet?

Re:Im a sun employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Sun will fire the idiots who said that RI, ACID, Triggers, and Stored Procedures aren't necessary for a real database. One can hope.

Re:Im a sun employee

[kabloom]

JavaDB is equivalent to SQLite in that it's an embedded DB. MySQL wouldn't be appropriate for some situations, specifically those where having a server is inappropriate.

Re:Im a sun employee

[dyefade]

Have you read Jennifer Government? They're both US Alliance!

Re:Im a sun employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that Java thing never really took off...

Re:Im a sun employee

[Brummund]

Uh, if you want RI, ACID, triggers and stored procedures, or in general, a decent relational database; I cannot see how the aquisition of MySQL will solve that.

(Go ahead, you drooling MySQL fanbois, mod me down, but rest assured, I will smile smugly as you desperately look up the above mentioned key features of a relation database on Wikipedia.)

Re:Im a sun employee

[krow]

Hi!

We added triggers, stored procedures, and views in 5.0. Today there are publicly several transactional engines (supported by companies like Oracle, IBM, Solid, and yes ourselves). There are many other non-public transactional engines.

Cheers,
      -Brian

Re:Im a sun employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you did, after years of saying that they were not needed. And don't get me started on MySQL's belief that simply using the MySQL wire protocol is a GPL violation. Face it, you work for a bunch of liars.

Re:Im a sun employee

[PReDiToR]

Yes yes yes, we have all read it, but have you played it?

Re:Im a sun employee

[ch-chuck]

Does Sun have stock in McDonald's?

Well, they have the Happy Meal Ethernet (hme0). Looks like they also partnered with Pontiac for the Sunfire and British Telecom for the Yellow Pages (NIS).

Re:Im a sun employee

[ahabswhale]

I hope you like using NetBeans :P

Re:Im a sun employee

[lysse]

He might be saying they're a bit too fond of Douglas Coupland.

Re:Im a sun employee

[farble1670]

derby is not (only) an embedded DB. it also has a network server.

Re:Im a sun employee

[ozbird]

Congratulations! Sun has a popular product at last.

Pity about their history of backing the wrong horse (e.g. NIS+).

Re:Im a sun employee

[Wizy]

Not with anyone of any real talent, no.

Re:Im a sun employee

[JavaRob]

(Go ahead, you drooling MySQL fanbois, mod me down, but rest assured, I will smile smugly as you desperately look up the above mentioned key features of a relation database on Wikipedia.) Speaking of desperate researching, why don't you look up what toy database Slashdot uses?
Perhaps one of those drooling fanbois can evict you now.

Re:Im a sun employee

[Anonymous Coward]

I may not be a big-wig, but i needed transactions and postgres had this long before mysql. And that's what I chose. Today, the only reason I could ever possibly see using mysql (for me) would be because the community is larger and there's more documentation and examples around. But having something today that I needed many years ago doesn't really help me nor does it give me a confident feeling that something else I might need in the future will be included in a timely fashion in it.

Re:Im a sun employee

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

at least they don't keep hitting it after it's dead.

NIS+ is deprecated on solaris 10. i asked about it in my solaris 10 classes in a sun education center. the order now is to put whatever doesn't fit on regular, non-plus NIS on LDAP. it could be either openLDAP or Java directory server (former iPlanet).

Re:Im a sun employee

[einhverfr]

So how do I ensure that only transactional data storage engines are used when I distribute my accounting application?

Oh wait, I can't because if you have people set up the server wrong it will silently drop my requests for transactional storage....

How do I ensure that no client apps disable strict model and start posting transactions for 2007-02-30?

Oh wait, I can't because any client can turn strict mode off....

Better stick to PostgreSQL for areas where transactional support or data integrity matters.....

Re:Im a sun employee

[Brummund]

Well, I just spent 6 months migrating a 700gb database from MySQL to a real RDBMS. The amount of data washing and general PITA of working with MySQL has deterred me from ever touching that product again.

I take it you don't work with enterprise databases containing millions and millions of records and transactions, but I can tell you, MySQL is not the hammer for that job.

On a daily basis I work with DB2, MSSQL, and until recently MySQL. I've used PostgreSQL for huge sites with gasillions of transactions, and I've delivered solutions on Oracle as well, although I won't claim any in-depth knowledge of that beast. Fine, go ahead, use MySQL. Give me a hint on Slashdot when you need help to migrate.

Re:Im a sun employee

[krow]

Answer is... you either set the default to Innodb or configure to use Innodb as the default engine. Its all about options.

The same goes for sql syntax requirements. We offer the option of being ANSI strict or not. Its up to you.

If PostgreSQL works for you, that is awesome. Please use what you are comfortable with.

Re:Im a sun employee

[einhverfr]

Then please take this as 2 feature requests:

1) Provide an option for administrators to disable any non-strict-mode settings. I.e. have a super-strict mode that clients cannot get out of.

2) Provide a syntax in table creation to cause the CREATE TABLE to error out if the requested table type is not available.

Both of the situations I described above have to do less with lack of options in MySQL, but rather the lack of central control either from an application developer perspective (no way to *force* InnoDB tables or else not create tables at all) or from a DBI perspective (no way to *force* real data bounds checking). Hence the "options" you speak of seem like they should be *requirements* rather than options for real applications.

Re:Im a sun employee

[krow]

Hi!

Thank you for the suggestions. Both sound like excellent ideas. Off the top of my head both can be done pretty easy with compiles, but it would be good to make a "jail break" version where the user really had not options.

Re:Im a sun employee

[JavaRob]

I do work on projects at that scale, but so far only using Oracle and DB2. I've also done DBMS migration projects, and even moving between something like DB2400 and DB2 UDB is a lot of careful work... and those are both (sort of) DB2.... MySQL has some quirks that are all its own that (if you don't know them, and I'm guessing you didn't) would make a migration that much trickier.

I personally have not yet used MySQL for any enormous project, partly just because of the way decisions are made in enterprise development, and partly because I personally know data mining techniques in Oracle & DB2 better... most of my MySQL experience has been with high-performance but simpler data complexity & scale requirements. My personal experience is pretty irrelevant to my point, though, that Slashdot itself is an obvious example of using MySQL quite successfully at a large scale.

If you're interested, you can read up on Slashdot's hardware and software setup.

I take it you don't work with enterprise databases containing millions and millions of records and transactions, but I can tell you, MySQL is not the hammer for that job. So, you mean to say it's not YOUR hammer for that job. Though either way it would depend on the actual requirements (not just "big vs. little") and experience of DBAs and developers, etc. to decide the RDBMS.

Fine, go ahead, use MySQL. Give me a hint on Slashdot when you need help to migrate. Thanks, but if I were doing that migration I think I'd prefer working with people who knew both source & destination RDBMS well. How did you get put in charge of a data migration where you had no knowledge/experience whatsoever of one of the two databases, anyway? That sounds like a recipe for trouble to me.

Re:Im a sun employee

[Brummund]

Once again, what Slashdot uses MySQL for is really totally uninteresting compared to the needs of the business world, where you are moving money, not "first post". ;-)

The fact that I've spent the last 6 months migrating from MySQL does not mean I haven't done a lot of work on it before. (You can find some really old posts from me moaning about their date-datatype on /., I guess)

Re:Im a sun employee

[einhverfr]

A stripped down strict-only build would help with the administrative control issues I mentioned. Unfortunately it still doesn't address the software distribution issues. What is needed there is some sort of a keyword on table creation to fail with an error when the requested table type does not exist.

Something like:

CREATE TABLE foo (
bar int auto_increment primary key,
baz text not null) TYPE=INNODB ONLY;

Re:Im a sun employee

[JavaRob]

Once again, what Slashdot uses MySQL for is really totally uninteresting compared to the needs of the business world, where you are moving money, not "first post". ;-) Once again, the "needs of the business world" vary greatly (interestingly, most businesses have some purpose other than just "moving money" - I might also point out that Slashdot is part of a profitable enterprise), and MySQL is one of many different tools that might or might not fit your requirements at an enterprise scale.

The fact that I've spent the last 6 months migrating from MySQL does not mean I haven't done a lot of work on it before. (You can find some really old posts from me moaning about their date-datatype on /., I guess) Ah, no -- I can explain where I got the idea that you hadn't done a lot of work with MySQL before:

Uh, if you want RI, ACID, triggers and stored procedures, or in general, a decent relational database; I cannot see how the aquisition of MySQL will solve that.

(Go ahead, you drooling MySQL fanbois, mod me down, but rest assured, I will smile smugly as you desperately look up the above mentioned key features of a relation database on Wikipedia.) It's hard to imagine you'd be spouting nonsense like that if you weren't either or both
a) unaware of ongoing development in MySQL over the past 5-6 years
b) just trolling because you enjoy it

Re:Im a sun employee

[Karl Cocknozzle]

I'm not surprised two people would waste mod-points lowering a facetious reply to a facetious reply... Whoever you both are--YOU NEED GIRLFRIENDS!

Sun?

[poena.dare]

Sun? Not Google?

Something's wrong here.

Re:Sun?

[TheGratefulNet]

screw google. hard to find a more evil company these days (ignore their 'newspeak' nonsense about not doing evil. those that know about google and haven't been inducted into 'the society' know about google and avoid it like the plague).

sun hires older workers (disc: I work at sun). when I interviewed at google, though, I was the oldest 'grey hair' in the whole cafeteria ;(

then, see the brian reid story to confirm all this evilness about google.

please think twice about parotting the 'google is not evil' mantra, because I assure you - if you are over mid 30's, they will either not hire you OR fire you before you are about to vest. quite evil.

so I'm glad its not going into the hands of google. they have enough power and are corrupt enough, already.

(really, go search on brian reid - it may turn your view around about 'the beloved google'). sad to say, but it is true.

Re:Sun?

[TheRaven64]

It's a bit odd considering how much effort Sun put in to pushing PostgreSQL on Solaris in the last year or so. I wonder what their goal in this acquisition is.

Re:Sun?

[timster]

Man, I KNOW -- they didn't hire me either. Totally evil.

Re:Sun?

[TheGratefulNet]

they hired brian and then fired him just before he was about to vest. they gave some cock and bull story about 'being too old fashioned' but if you knew brian (and I actually do) then you'd know this was a total blatant lie.

its not about not being hired - its about their hiring CRITERIA and retention methods. seriously, this has surfaced a few times and its not exactly a secret anymore.

I feel I dodged a bullet by not going there. who wants to work like a slave and then be fired right BEFORE you vest. evil!

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

did you bake them a cake shaped like the internet?

Re:Sun?

[glwtta]

Man, I KNOW -- they didn't hire me either. Totally evil.

And I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet!

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just searched using Google; found nothing...

Re:Sun?

[Xest]

To destroy competition and make PostgreSQL even stronger ;) ?

Re:Sun?

[goose-incarnated]

then, see the brian reid story to confirm all this evilness about google.

I googled for it, but nothing really evil came up

Oh, wait ...

Re:Sun?

[TheGratefulNet]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=brian+reid+google&btnG=Google+Search

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5283653.html

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9792046-7.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reid_(computer_scientist)

took me all of a minute to find that.

Re:Sun?

[Mr. Underbridge]

So you think enough of google to apply, don't get hired, then assume that when you're not hired it's because of your age? Ever consider you just didn't cut it?

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but maybe they have a point.
Google have seen widespread success with thier relatively new software
But sun just seams to be churning out old ideas office suite, online applet, unix based OS. theres nothing wrong with any of their products but they're not bringing anything new to the market either!

Re:Sun?

[Evil Kerek]

Of course - they didn't hire you therefore they must be evil. And that puts you 'in the know'.

Why couldn't I see it before now?

Almost blew milk out my nose on that one. (Come on mods, what makes that hyperbole informative?) On Brian Reid, well I see a wiki entry where he may or may not have been fired for his age. A quick search shows the law suit is still pending (there's actually very little online about it or him from yahoo or google) so I fail to see how this proves anything.

Maybe you are right. Maybe you are wrong. Nothing you've presented pushes it particularly in either direction - you simply sound like someone who's pissed they didn't get hired.

Re:Sun?

[teknopurge]

Sun is the 2000 version of Bell Labs.

Google just makes beta applications.

Regards,

Re:Sun?

[pleappleappleap]

MySQL and PostgreSQL aren't aimed at exactly the same kind of problem. MySQL performs small tasks very quickly, but doesn't scale that well to large tasks. PostgreSQL doesn't perform small tasks nearly as quickly as MySQL does, but also doesn't have nearly as much overhead on large tasks as MySQL does.

Re:Sun?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Well, mysql + linux/redhat is the main competitor of solaris + posgresql.

Re:Sun?

[mhall119]

XML is the final refuge of the incompetent Equating XML to Violence with an obscure Asimov quote, I love it!

Re:Sun?

[rvw]

And I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet! Man, what era are you from? Come over to Amsterdam! We have cakes shaped like space here!!! The internet, duh! Can't you do better than that?

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they don't do that. Even as a proud postgres user which doesn't like to meddle with mysql, I'd see a mysql debacle as a debacle for the open source community.

Re:Sun?

[Shakrai]

MySQL performs small tasks very quickly, but doesn't scale that well to large tasks

Doesn't Slashdot use MySQL on the backend? Doesn't Google use it for some stuff?

Might it have been more fair to say "PostgreSQL scales better then MySQL" then "MySQL doesn't scale well"?

Re:Sun?

[MoeDrippins]

And they probably wouldn't subsidize your tin foil beanie upkeep regimen either, I bet. [Rolls eyes]

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Slashdot use MySQL on the backend? Doesn't Google use it for some stuff?

Both of these applications involve non-critical data that you can play loosey-goosey with. No one cares (or at least /. doesn't) that multiple pages of comments overlap each other or have gaps. No one cares (or at least Google doesn't) that two successive searches for the same thing yield different results (esp. blog search and usenet search).

OTOH I would be surprised if Google uses MySQL to manage their corporate finances. MySQL isn't even ACID compliant afaik unless you use the non-native InnoDB and even then I'm not sure.

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I KNOW -- they didn't hire me either. Totally evil.

And I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet!

Hey, I saw you on "American Idol" last night!

Re:Sun?

[value_added]

please think twice about parotting the 'google is not evil' mantra, because I assure you - if you are over mid 30's, they will either not hire you OR fire you before you are about to vest. quite evil.

According to my calculations, Bram Moolenaar is "over mid 30's". And he works for Google. Go figure.

Might have something to do with abilities which, by contrast, include the ability to form coherent paragraphs uncluttered with bizarre abbreviations, inappropriate punctuation and random case.

Re:Sun?

[PReDiToR]

Obscure?

With the building plans here in the UK eating up all our Greenbelt and the EU rules messing about with farming and agriculture so we have to import food and export waste I already feel like I'm living on Trantor.

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

so, tubes were involved, huh?

Re:Sun?

[errxn]

really, go search on brian reid - it may turn your view around about 'the beloved google'

Should I do a Google search on him?

Re:Sun?

[kjhambrick]

Yeah ... kinda like they (Sun) bought INTERACTIVE UNIX from Eastman Co. (Kodak) back around 1992, forced their user base to migrate to their shite-x386 Solaris, then killed INTERACTIVE UNIX.

Can you tell I was once a happy ISUNIX user ?

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: the whole world does not revolve about you.

Your description of what is evil or not seems based around a purely selfish, ego-driven perspective.

Please, grow up. You obviously are old enough chronologically. Now, perhaps you should look to become more mature emotionally.

Re:Sun?

[Deanalator]

Well, they bought mysql the company, not mysql the database :-)

Mysql the company is essentially a large group of consultants that help optimize JEE backend systems, whose bottlenecks often happen somewhere around the database communications. Strategically, it looks like sun is trying to move more into the service model, and now sun's new consultants have direct access to optimising the JEE components themselves if needed.

Re:Sun?

[forrestt]

You are basing your belief on VERY old data.

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?97,18003,18003

This post was made in March, '05, so for the "5 years now" puts it back to 2000.

HTH

Forrest

Re:Sun?

[smchris]

I remember a chart some time ago. Being a PostgreSQL supporter myself, I don't remember MySQL even on the chart but I do remember that Oracle, DB2 and PostgreSQL were at the top with nearly a straight line in scaling and SQL Server started to choke around 200 connections.

Re:Sun?

[dwater]

..and there are other options too.

For example, it's possible that their recruitment system isn't perfect, or you just don't interview well. I suppose those could be considered the same thing since in a perfect recruitment system it wouldn't matter how well you interview. It's easy to feel bad when you don't get an offer after an interview when you really wanted one, but it's not necessarily simply because you're not good enough, and it's certainly no reason to not try again, if you really want the job.

Also, you don't have to *apply* to get an interview - *they* could approach you. Of course, you could tell them you're not interested (which is what you probably meant).

Re:Sun?

[BlueCollarCamel]

Stop providing support to new customers, and wait out any support contracts already in existence for MySQL. Then convince them to switch to PostgreSQL?

Re:Sun?

[Kidbro]

if you are over mid 30's, they will either not hire you OR fire you before you are about to vest.

I see

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because a single guy's horror story is absolute confirmation of Google's "Evilness". Does he include his work ethic and testimony from his co-workers or performance reviews showing excellent met expectations? Or does he just scream bloody murder because he feels he was wrong.

Re:Sun?

[Swampash]

Your cake was a lie.

Re:Sun?

[Swampash]

Holy crap. Brian Reid:

- developed Scribe
- helped build the first Cisco router
- helped found Adobe
- built the first firewall
- built Alta Vista
- created the "alt." Usenet hierarchy

(sarcasm) No wonder Google sacked him, he's obviously useless.

Re:Sun?

[headLITE]

That's the most wrong idea of what MySQL (the company) is that I've seen so far...

MySQL AB has close to 400 employees, more than 100 of which are engineers working on its products. They didn't buy a bunch of consultants. They bought a) almost all developers, b) rights to the source code, and c) a working business based on selling MySQL (the database) and support for it.

Re:Sun?

[Deanalator]

I'm sorry, but it sounds like you just said that I am wrong, and then restated what I said in my post. I think maybe I have a broader definition of "consultant" than you, but that seems to be it.

Re:Sun?

[Mjlner]

(really, go search on brian reid - it may turn your view around about 'the beloved google'). sad to say, but it is true.

Well, I searched Google for Brian Reid and I found nothing bad about Google. You must be misinformed.

Re:Sun?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there isn't a lot of difference between the cost of
(i) an HP box + RHEL licence & support and
(ii) a Sun x86 box, with Solaris licence & support effectively thrown in

An awful lot of people run mysql but mysql only get money from about 1% of them. I expect that most of the people running mysql do so on linux.
Now that Sun has mysql they can effectively bundle in mysql support as well. So the option of buying a Sun box looks more attractive now, you get the bonus of mysql support free (thrown into the bundle).
Server sales are where its at for Sun, I expect they are trying to move HP/RHEL customers onto Sun machines running Solaris on x86.

Licenses

[ilovegeorgebush]

Interesting surprise! I wonder if Sun will streamline the licensing madness that MySQL has become...

Re:Licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Sun will streamline the licensing madness that MySQL has become... I'm sure that's part of the plan. Streamlined madness is what I've come to expect from Sun.

Re:Licenses

[Martian_Kyo]

mysql license is real mess, it can be interpreted in so many ways.

Re:Licenses

[Spy der Mann]

mysql license is real mess, it can be interpreted in so many ways.

Mod parent insightful, please!

I recall reading that MySQL AB really didn't stand a chance to force the GPL (and therefore, move to their proprietary license) on programs that connected to the database because that was "dynamically linking". Dude, WTF? Using protocols to communicate to a program or service is NOT linking! I got so angry when I read the news on the License change, that I wanted to tag the story "greedybastards".
But if MySQL AB told the truth, then nobody would buy their ultra-expensive license.

On the other hand, Sun and their promotion of Open Office (and open formats) is a proper example of Free software.

Let's hope things change for the good (for example, re-releasing the MySQL client software to LGPL or GPL+linking exception).

Re:Licenses

[Tony Hoyle]

This is the same company that states writing a program that uses mysql as the backend (even via odbc) is the same as distributing mysql... even though not a single byte of mysql code is distributed.

Hopefully Sun can bash some sanity into them.

Re:Licenses

[zdzichu]

Did your program really communicated using MySQL protocol over TCP or unix socket? Is this protocol even documented?
Almost all software uses implementation of this protocol from libmysqlclient. Linking to this library. Hence, GPL.

Re:Licenses

[mhall119]

I think the claim was that linking to the GPL'd header files to produce the MySQL drivers would make the drivers GPL, and therefore any program that linked the drivers would also be GPL.

Re:Licenses

[djtack]

Using protocols to communicate to a program or service is NOT linking!

I understand where you're coming from, which is why I moved to Postgres for all my new applications last year. However, as it stands now, I think MySQL is within their rights to use the GPL for the client. As far as I know, there is no way to communicate with a MySQL server without linking to their client library (i.e., libmysqlclient.a). At one time there was an attempt to maintain a fork of the old LGPL MySQL 3, but it never took off. Now, merely linking to the client library doesn't automatically create a derived worked (see Linus's explanation), however, in the absence of some other compatible library you could have linked with instead, it's pretty much impossible to say your linked program is independent of MySQL. And since independence is a requirement to have a non-derived work (i.e. the ability for a program to live a separate life, do something useful without the linked library), the program ends up being derived from the MySQL client, and has to abide by the GPL.
There is still plenty of argument around this topic, but again, it can be avoided by using Postgres, which IMHO is a better database anyway.

Re:Licenses

[Blakey Rat]

Amen. I've avoided using MySQL on hobby projects because, on the off-chance any of them actually go on to make any money, I have absolutely *no clue* when, where, how, and even whether I need to start paying for it instead of using the open source version. Well, that, and their hostile attitude towards fixing bugs in some of their supporting projects (like MySQL Query Browser.)

Re:Licenses

[photon317]

I agree about PostgreSQL being a better option for so many reasons (and this new Sun thing is just yet another on the list). The only thing PostgreSQL really needs is some kind of asynch multimaster replication. That's one place where you can get "forced" to use MySQL because Pg can't do what you need. MySQL's implementation of asynch multimaster replication sucks anyways, I'm sure the Pg community can do it better eventually.

Back to the topic at hand though, one way around the libmysqlclient GPL thing is to insulate yourself in a dynamic language where your code doesn't explicitly "link" with libmysqlclient. If you're using Perl (or any other similar language I would assume), DBD::mysql links to libmysqlclient.a, but your own Perl application can be whatever license you like and just "use DBI" (and DBD::mysql indirectly), which is not linking.

Re:Licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not that simple. If a dynamic linking is "linking", but talking via a socket using some protocol is not, than one could circumvent "linking" by creating a wrapper (server) to a GPL library that would export to a socket using some kind of RPC, and another wrapper (client) that would communicate with the first exporting the API of the original GPL library. The first wrapper would naturally be GPL, then second could be public domain. It would allow anybody to link with the public domain wrapper and use the GPL library via the socket. Of course, the intention of GPL was not to have such a loophole.

Whether connecting via protocol is "linking" needs to be decided on a case by case basic, it's not always obvious.

Re:Licenses

[Khelder]

Thanks for the link to Linus's interpretation of GPL. I agree with him that copyright rights shouldn't depend on ln vs. mkisofs differences.

However, I'd appreciate it if someone could explain more about his argument that libc and libqt, for example, differ substantially in terms of derived works and GPL. In both cases, a program dynamically linked against one needs something that implements the same API in order to run. So if number of existing implementations is a problem, could I just write my own implementation of the API (one that maybe isn't as featureful), and then I'd be in the clear? (Granted, for libgt this would be a major undertaking, but for a smaller GPLed library it wouldn't be.) To me, this is a really weird argument.

Re:Licenses

[maz2331]

Or just write to an ODBC lib and let it manage the connection. That way, your code is written to be "portable" and not specific to any back-end DB server.

Re:Licenses

[starfishsystems]

Well, this highlights the reason why the entire linking argument is specious. As I recall, it just popped up one day out of nowhere, basically because Linus didn't want the kernel to be contaminated with proprietary device drivers. I'm sympathetic to the motive. The means, however, were never reasonable. The GPL itself says nothing about linking. It talks instead only about "incorporation".

Think about it. As soon as you start to extend the linking taboo to the general case, you find yourself on a very slippery slope. It's crazy to suggest that linking to a library leads somehow to a derived work. No, folks, that would be the basis of a little thing we call modularity. It works by means of defined interfaces, in this case through function declarations.

Not function definitions, note. If your program were to contain the body of a function licensed under the GPL, then it would be considered a derived work, since copying a body of code is the essence of incorporation. The GPL forbids incorporation. Fine, excellent. But it nowhere forbids use of an interface to call out to licensed code.

Re:Licenses

[AttillaTheNun]

I hear JSR-12987372 is on the way to create an industry-standard interpretation of the mySQL licensing.

Re:Licenses

[dodobh]

Bucardo

Bucardo is an asynchronous PostgreSQL replication system, allowing for both multi-master and multi-slave operations. It was developed at Backcountry.com primarily by Greg Sabino Mullane of End Point Corporation.

(Multimaster is limited to 2 masters)

Re:Licenses

[Godji]

No, using their network protocol is not linking. What happens is that in order to use the standard SQL language over the network, you link your app to a small library, which handles the transport of SQL to the database, and the transport of the result back. The Java example is their JDBC driver. If that little piece is under the GPL, your entire program needs to be, or you need to pay.

Theoretically, you could reverse engineer their network protocol and re-implement the little piece yourself.

Re:Licenses

[MichaelSmith]

pretty much impossible to say your linked program is independent of MySQL

Its messy but I suppose you could create your own GPL licensed middle layer which links with the MySQL client library directly and communicates with your application through a socket.

Re:Licenses

[makomk]

There's a third-party Perl module, Net::MySQL, that implements the protocol itself and doesn't link to the MySQL client library - it's not exactly well-maintained, though. Reimplementing the protocol is not technically difficult, but no-one does for licensing reasons because with MySQL's interpretation of the GPL it doesn't gain them anything anyway.

Re:Licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the old version of libmysqlclient was LGPL (libmysqlclient10 in Debian and Ubunutu), they later changed the license to try to "encourage" people to pay for licenses.

Re:Licenses

[ian-urnovel]

just wondering, is Sun actually planning on altering the licences ? or was it just a purchase ? for my the mysql database and extras are prefect and would not want to change to another database because of licence issues. Or is Sun just trying to cheese of Oracle etc.. I found this a interesting read http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/16/sun-mysql_1.html

Not a rash move

[Now15]

Sun has been thinking about this for a while
http://www.news.com/2100-7344_3-5562799.html

Re:Not a rash move

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, I remember the 'Sun DB' remark. I expect we'll see a Sun-branded version of MySQL (SunSQL? MySunDB? StarSQL? OpenSQL.org?). I also expect to see Sun packaging MySQL with OpenOffice.org, with smoother OOo Base integration.

Re:Not a rash move

[canuck57]

But I think most people thought Sun might push PostgreSQL which is a nice database. Not sure why Sun would purchase MySQL, seems like an expensive PR move. I for one have seen Sun's product support deteriorate over the years, and hope they keep support for MySQL independent of the main line support. Or maybe this plays into Oracle as Oracle had or has an alliance with Sun. Is this alliance strained?

Re:Not a rash move

[richlv]

well, it would be weird if they just tucked together all the different acquisitions :)
though it isn't impossible - there's a relatively new thing, embedded mysql : http://www.mysql.com/products/embedded/.
frankly, i'd welcome such an option aside current java solution.

Re:Not a rash move

[TrueKonrads]

Probably because MySQL is a company and PostgreSQL is not?

Re:Not a rash move

[cthart]

The Oracle-Sun alliance has been strained of late; Larry wants to be independent of everyone else, it's not in his style to forge alliances. Oracle's embracing of Linux hasn't helped this alliance either.

Re:Not a rash move

[canuck57]

Probably because MySQL is a company and PostgreSQL is not?

But my point being, $800M or whatever the price is could hire a lot of good technical talent for a long time. Put that talent into development for intrinsic growth, and fork or work with MySQL and/or PostgreSQL and do some good moving ahead development work. Because what is lacking in North American companies is intrinsic (profitable) growth.

I think Sun just wasted a lot of good cash. And the Innobase licensing has a time limit.

Re:Not a rash move

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that the alliance has been somewhat strained of late. For a long time, Solaris was Oracle's reference platform. That has changed with Oracle 11i, which was released initially supporting only Linux and Windows. I note that the Oracle Critical Patch Update for Jan '08 has been released today, and the 11i version is only available for Linux and Windows so far, with other platforms following in the next week or two. Sun is not overly delighted by this.

Re:Not a rash move

[Weslee]

PostgreSQL has 7 -core developers, one of those works at Sun.

While Sun didn't buy any of the PostgreSQL companies, they do provide support and developers - the same as the others.
I doubt their support of PostgreSQL will lessen any.

The two database communities are not comparable.

MySQL is run by a central company.
PostgreSQL is run by the community, with companies growing up around it offering additional features and support (of which Sun is one of them).

What will happen is MySQL, the company, is shut down?
This I don't know.

I do know what will happen if the companies around PostgreSQL go away?
Its happened before. - PostgreSQL continues.

If anything from my point of view this is better for MySQL.
It stops companies like Oracle from being able to control the only company that truly controls MySQL.

Re:Not a rash move

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just guess, but they probably bought MySQL because they have complete ownership over the source code, like Sun has with its products. That way Sun can still take the dual license route if they so wish.

The Postgres IP may not be as well vetted for that to happen (if it's even possible at all).

Re:Not a rash move

[Reverend528]

Most likely they'll call it the "Java SQL Environment", or JSE for those seeking more acronym certifications.

Re:Not a rash move

[jhines]

MySQL powered by SUN has a nice ring to it.

Re:Not a rash move

[richlv]

And the Innobase licensing has a time limit.

there is a reason why mysql are developing falcon.
http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Falcon

Re:Not a rash move

[ChrisA90278]

They bought MySQL because you can't buy Postgres. There is no "postgres inc." to take your money. I think they needed a DBMS that they could own and control.

Sun seems to support both MySQL and PostrageSQL but they may be looking for a dbms they can embed in non-open source projects maybe the way Apple embeds SQL Lite in Mac OS X.

If Sun planned to build a DBMS into Solaris they would want to control the dbms' technical direction and quality.

Re:Not a rash move

[eaman]

Well MySQL was on sale, in the way that it is a product made by a small private group instead of a community of denvelopers (=Postgresql).
Postgres is harder to control by SUN, while Mysql was an available commodity.

Re:Not a rash move

[lucifron]

Postgres is BSD licenced. - http://www.postgresql.org/about/licence

Re:Not a rash move

[chromatic]

$800M or whatever the price is could hire a lot of good technical talent for a long time.

$800M can also buy a lot of customers. That's what Sun did.

Re:Not a rash move

[Anonymous Coward]

Since either PostgreSQL or MySQL could easily be forked by either Sun if it wants to control where things are going, or the open source community if they don't like where Sun is headed with it (with the *MAJOR* hitch of Innodb being licensed in the case of MySQL), they don't really have total control. Nor is it worth as much to pay $800 million for the partial control they do have IMHO.

Re:Not a rash move

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at Oracle, and this came up. The view in the ranks is that every since McNealy stepped down, the relationship between Oracle and Sun has been degrading. All of this is now really interesting as Oracle owns the InnoDB storage backend for MySQL. No one knows what direction this will go.

Re:Not a rash move

[Tablizer]

Sun-branded version of MySQL (SunSQL? MySunDB? StarSQL? OpenSQL.org?).

"SunQ", he he

Re:Not a rash move

[MemoryDragon]

Actually innodb is a dying technology, after oracles move of buying out innodb, mysql hired one of the main firebird developers who has been working on new db backends in the past. Hiring him is the only reason why I think MySQL one day will become a good DB, all which has been produced befor has been utter garbage. Well not really MySQL has had its merits in small storages which did not need good data protection. I would rather go with PostgresSQL any day, but often customers enforce MySQL explicitely due to server housing issues (mysql usually is available cheaply, postgresql is not)

Re:Not a rash move

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is spreading themselves way too thin by purchasing companies that detract from their core businesses. Sun's support has been going downhill very quickly over the past year and it has gotten so bad that even the Sun Account Representative doesn't know what to do to resolve the problem.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear they paid an astronomical amount for MySQL. In fairness though, the code is stellar. The developers must be beaming with pride. If I were a shareholder, it would certainly brighten up my day.

PS: Sorry.

Re:Wow!

[Daimanta]

True, but when I read it I was a bit startled.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you just know they are going to charge a lot of mooney for support. You'd have to be a lunatic to go with MySQL now. You might as well go to the dark side and choose MS-SQL. I just hope PostgreSQL won't be eclipsed by this new development.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Their code is stellar, unless you want a database that actually enforces constraints and data validation.

Re:Wow!

[swillden]

Their code is stellar, unless you want a database that actually enforces constraints and data validation.

MySQL with the InnoDB engine have had referential integrity constraints and atomic transactions since 2002. I'm not sure what you mean by "data validation".

Re:Wow!

[farble1670]

I hear they paid an astronomical amount for MySQL.

$1B.

Re:Wow!

[Dhalka226]

I assume he means something like "if the field is varchar(50) and you dump a 58-character string into it, it should fail rather than truncate." In which case I'm sure you can get that behavior by turning the database on to strict mode.

Re:Wow!

[SQL Error]

I have mod points, but there seems to be neither a -1 Truly Awful Pun nor a +1 Truly Awful Pun.

Re:Wow!

[rdeleonp]

I assume he means something like "if the field is varchar(50) and you dump a 58-character string into it, it should fail rather than truncate." In which case I'm sure you can get that behavior by turning the database on to strict mode.

Which can be changed at runtime by the client. Not good...

Here is the PR

[kill-1]

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080116/20080116005349.html?.v=1

"As part of the transaction, Sun will pay approximately $800 million in cash in exchange for all MySQL stock and assume approximately $200 million in options."

Re:Here is the PR

[icke]

It would be interesting to see how this might stress their relationship with Oracle. So are we heading back to the days of a vertically integrated "stack"? I doubt it. More likely they will jettison the hardware business and concentrate on software.

Re:Here is the PR

[MrKaos]

For sure, The big guys (IBM, Sun, Oracle, Microsoft) are starting to look the same, with only Microsoft not playing with Open Source something. Could be interesting days ahead, it really looks like business models are starting to reshape themselves as they try to squeeze more dollars out of each account and/or IBM/Sun/Oracle eyeing over how much profit they could squeeze out of the demise of Microsoft's market share in the business sector.

Perhaps Sun will be playing around with open sourcing some more of their hardware as a pseudo way of moving away from hardware, without actually losing all their hardware aquisitions.

But it is interesting to see how open source as a business model is evolving by allowing competitors to leverage off each other and still compete. Maybe what we are looking at is the "horizontalisation" of the market, I note that with speculation about an open sourcing of DB2 and Oracle databases, Microsoft's position in the market looks more and more isolated every day.

Re:Here is the PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? Sun gives most of its software away (Java, Solaris). It makes most money on hardware, then service contracts. It makes some pretty impressive datacenter computers, the power/cooling savings alone make them better than Dell Poweredges.

Re:Here is the PR

[div_2n]

Hopefully they are starting to realize the real value in offering software virtually for free but charging for the support. You get a lot more regular paying customers if they can pay a very affordable annual cost for continued support vs paying some stupid high software cost up front. Many opportunities are missed because of the sticker shock for SMBs.

Re:Here is the PR

[arebenti]

SUN has an agreement with Microsoft and MySQL was the biggest sponsor of the no software patent movement in the European Union. I wonder which effects are to be expected on MySQL's great patent policy.

Re:Here is the PR

[Silverstrike]

Well, to be fair, even MS is playing with OSS a little. Albiet in a very Microsofty way, they are releasing all the source-code for the .NET Framework:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/10/03/releasing-the-source-code-for-the-net-framework-libraries.aspx/

Re:Here is the PR

[superskippy]

I am delighted that the second best Unix flavour has bought the second best open-source database.

Re:Here is the PR

[balbeir]

I think you need to look at it as outsourced R&D for these companies.

A lot of these big companies are losing the ability to produce anything decent or innovative these days.
So they leave the R&D to small startups which they then snatch up. It's cheaper for them.

The open source theme is there because it provides a pool of knowledge that can be shared between all these startups. In the past
the internal R&D departements could only rely on an in-house pool which was much smaller (and is shrinking).

Re:Here is the PR

[PFAK]

Sun has known this for years, I don't think they've just started to "realize" that.

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been waiting SOO long for OpenJySQL 19!

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've been waiting SOO long for OpenJySQL 19!"

What calendar is that?
According to the Gregorian_calendar today is Jan 16.

Great news

[KiloByte]

Well, this could be something to breath life into MySQL which seemed to be in dire straits recently. After Oracle's low blows removed both of transactional engines, it looks like everyone is abandoning MySQL for Postgres.

Re:Great news

[numbski]

Could you fill us in? What low blows, and what transactional engines were removed? (Not being stupid, I'm just ignorant to what you're referring to...)

Re:Great news

[Too Much Noise]

Oracle bought both InnoDB and BerkeleyDB. Those still happen to be two of the better engine options of MySQL.

Re:Great news

[canuck57]

Well, this could be something to breath life into MySQL which seemed to be in dire straits recently. After Oracle's low blows removed both of transactional engines, it looks like everyone is abandoning MySQL for Postgres.

There was no doubt what Oracle did was predatory, but if MySQL didn't use commercial InnoBase component they would not have had any issues.

Lets hope many contributors and users dump MySQL and go to PostgreSQL. I have used PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. I often thought PostgreSQL was underrated and suspect those switching will be happy.

Re:Great news

[glwtta]

Didn't Oracle buy InnoDB two years ago, or so? I'm pretty sure they were still distributing it under GPL - did something new happen?

Not sure if anyone ever actually used the BDB backend, but it's definitely still distributed under Sleepycat's Free license.

Re:Great news

[cheater512]

I've never found the need to use anything other than MySQL.

I dont need any fancy features but I do need speed.
For that MySQL fits the bill perfectly and Postgre not quite so.

There isnt any real reason that I know of for me to switch although if there was one I probably would.

Re:Great news

[krow]

Not likely :)

Re:Great news

[Cajal]

PostgreSQL has closed the speed gap that MySQL had over it years ago. And it's not just a matter of "fancy features" -- MySQL doesn't properly support the features that it does have. Any database that silently truncates data and silently corrupts table schemas is no database I want to use.

Re:Great news

[jollyreaper]

Looking for people with capture cards in all 32 NFL markets. E-mail me! I see what you're up to there. Congratulations, I wish you luck but you'd best slip on your lawsuit-proof undies. I don't watch football but hear complaints from those who do. The NFL corporate must be staffed by ex-Microsofties.

Re:Great news

[Jerry]

Another advantage of PostgreSQL is that it's SQL syntax is 95% or more compatible with Oracle's.

I am using QT4/C++ with PostgreSQL/Oracle. The source uses compiler defines to select the relevant database and to make appropriate changes in syntax for things like nested CODE/DECODE, etc. It can compile unchanged on either Linux or Windows and runs the same way on both, with identical look & feel. I use MS VS 2003 on Windows and QDevelop or Kate on Linux.

IMO, for all light to medium (and some heavy) applications PostgreSQL is more than adequate. It is a LOT easier to maintain and is auto-tuning. It's license precludes any corporation from buy out PostgreSQL and taking control of it, although corporations can utilize it with their proprietary extensions to make a specialized product.

Re:Great news

[Lord Ender]

Just so you know, a lot of people on /. automatically mod down anyone who has a bold sig. We don't take kindly to spam on slashdot.

Re:Great news

[Henkc]

Exactly, nor does it support industry standard SQL elements. MySQL hops around like a hobbled horse, with the authors claiming a fourth leg isn't needed to be a true RDBMS... Utter crap.

Re:Great news

[jdfox]

MySQL dropped BerkeleyDB support back in version 5.1.12 (24 October 2006). MyISAM is still the default engine, and for many common applications is still a good choice. They are exposed long-term over the InnoDB purchase, but only for transactional apps, and there are several good candidates available that might replace it. Oracle are in no hurry to bury a major revenue source until the strategic advantages of doing so outweigh the short-term benefits of selling InnoDB into companies that wouldn't have bought Oracle anyway.

Re:Great news

[jeremycole]

You're moderately insane. BDB has *never* been a good option for MySQL. It has sucked from day 1.

Re:Great news

[smchris]

I started with C/S on Oracle too and I've noticed that. I think it's one reason I like PostgreSQL and find MySQL annoying. So why do people like MySQL? Is it familiar to people who started with SQL Server or something? Or just the first db they encountered when they picked up a LAMP book?

Re:Great news

[Tony]

Or just the first db they encountered when they picked up a LAMP book?

Pretty much.

Back in the day, it was also much less featureful, and so PostgreSQL seemed complex by comparison. Oh, and PostgreSQL didn't have fantastic documentation until a little bit later (around 8.0). There were major holes in the documentation, like backup and restore.

At least, this is what a friend of mine tells me. He evaluated PG, but found the documentation lacking.

Meanwhile, go count the number of MySQL books vs. PG books.

There's a huge catch-22 for PG vs. MySQL. There are only a few PG books because everyone uses MySQL. People use MySQL because there are so many books on it (and because some people really do like it). We see the same thing in OOo vs. MS-Office, or free software in general. There are *so* many books available on MS software, so people are going to gravitate towards MS software. We need more free software books, and more shelf space in Barnes and Nobles and Waldenbooks and whatnot.

Re:Great news

[cheater512]

When I ditched ASP/Access for PHP/MySQL many years ago it was just the right tool for the job.
I wouldnt exactly say PostgreSQL was completely ready back then.

This was six or seven years ago and there has been nothing which has tempted me over to PostgreSQL since.

Re:Great news

[cheater512]

Speed is required for my code. With 500 queries per second on average it really counts.
Any speed decrease would be significant.

Also when used correctly it will never truncate or corrupt data.
All that is just exaggerated FUD.
Remember that the vast majority of the big websites out there use MySQL without any problems. (Yahoo, Facebook, Google, etc...)

So I'm right and I should stick with MySQL then?
Since speed is crucial and fancy features would never be used.

Re:Great news

[PhotoGuy]

Isn't Sun free to work on (fork) the last open source version of InnoDB prior to Oracle's purchase? I seem to remember hearing that an InnoDB fork was a possibility, but nobody had the resources to take it on. Sun would. That would rock, as InnoDB had some nice features/performance...

Re:Great news

[Anonymous Coward]

MySQL is notorious for silently truncating strings, munging trailing whitespace, clipping numbers, dropping unexpected ENUM/SET tokens, and skipping foreign key checks. The cost of checking for all these is negligible except foreign keys, and there the referenced records should be in cache anyway (or where did you get the id to use?) None of these problems can be permanently prevented; you are always one mis-configuration away from storing garbage without even knowing it. And the most dangerous configuration is the default, because this behavior (that should never have been inflicted on the world) has idiots out there relying on it.

Rollback is not a fancy feature. I happen to know Facebook does have problems with some reads and writes that span database servers. If Google did have a problem giving ideal search results, how would anyone detect this? (Didn't they roll their own append-only distributed database anyway?)

Re:Great news

[hlge]

Sun does actually have some interesting DB technology that they acquired a few years back in form of Clustra, it's used today in their appserver to store state information in a cluster of appservers. It could potentially be used as an engine for MySQL, and there are some interesting things in the non posix part of ZFS that could be used to create a new engine as well. Lets see where they go with it, should be fun to watch :)

What the????

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just plain crazy.

Only one question

[pieterh]

Will it blend?

Not that I distrust Sun's motives when it comes to free software. I mean they did a stellar job on OpenOffice.org, didn't they?

Re:Only one question

[clem]

I sense sarcasm, but I fail to see any reason for it that's self-evident. What problems have you been having with OpenOffice.org?

Great news!!

[Slashidiot]

... I think. Are these great news? It's hard to know in which direction will big companies move. But if Sun keeps it's current track, I would say these are great news.

Re:Great news!!

[b100dian]

I think it's long-term bye-bye LAMP, since Sun may "empower" MySQL with Java stored procedures, may obfuscate the documentation(like Oracle does), or remove the transactions altogether and replace them with soft ones (JTA),... or anything you can expect (if you've seen a Java programmer using 1% of databases' features..)

Re:Great news!!

[LDoggg_]

How is adding Java stored procedures a bad thing?
Oracle has them and they are very useful. Unless of course you think PLSQL is the be-all end-all.

Sure you can use only CRUD operations and do everything in the middle or client tier but it's not always the most efficient.

I'd love to see Sun add two things: Java stored procedures and sequences.
If anything, Sun enhancing MySQL is a win for LAMP.

Re:Great news!!

[b100dian]

How is adding Java stored procedures a bad thing?
First, because it will make easier for developers to put more application logic in the database.
Second, because a native compiled stored procedure (native, that is, to the DBMS) would be faster
But mostly, because free hosting which maintains something based on Java it's like.. not there.

And you have to admit that free hosting w/ MySQL is one of the reasons LAMP developers are so many, and LAMP is successful

Sure you can use only CRUD operations and do everything in the middle or client tier but it's not always the most efficient.
Exactly my point. But moving the bytecode from the middle tier into the database makes no difference either.

Re:Great news!!

[LDoggg_]

First, because it will make easier for developers to put more application logic in the database.

The mere potential to be abused doesn't automatically discredit the technology

Second, because a native compiled stored procedure (native, that is, to the DBMS) would be faster

Have you actually used Oracle's java stored procedures? Java's typical startup time is slow, but you won't be relaunching the whole JVM each call. Execution speed once things are in RAM isn't a problem. Not to mention things like Hotspot and thread and object pooling would probably be in place.

But mostly, because free hosting which maintains something based on Java it's like.. not there.

First, who said Mysql would be based on Java? We're just talking about a Java extension for stored procedures.
Also, free hosting typically gives you an account on a shared MySQL server or cluster. I'm sure considerations for throttling and sandboxing will be put in place before a mysql version with java extensions was considered production ready.
The hosting company upgrading Mysql to a version that had more options for stored procedure syntax is by no means the same thing as having them give you your own tomcat or jboss instance.

And you have to admit that free hosting w/ MySQL is one of the reasons LAMP developers are so many, and LAMP is successful

Well I don't use much free hosting other than things like sourceforge, but the ~5dollar a month variety with tons of bandwith is great. I have a few websites running on just that.
If I could get it for the same price, I'd much rather have LA(Postgres)P than LAMP and tomcat. That or just a vm that I could install whatever I wanted on.

Exactly my point. But moving the bytecode from the middle tier into the database makes no difference either.

For some things it can make all the difference in the world.
Peformance bottleknecks in business applications are often due to round-trips to the database, especially when it's large amounts of are going back and forth over insuffecient bandwith.

Re:Great news!!

[LDoggg_]

ooops. hit the preview...

I'd much rather have LA(Postgres)P AND tomcat than just LAMP.

Re:Great news!!

[jo42]

Must beg to differ. This is very bad news!

Knowing Sun, they will somehow bugger MySQL with Java, making it more bloated and slower.

A sad day indeed.

Re:Great news!!

[b100dian]

Ok, we certainly disagree - maybe it's a matter of taste, maybe of different experiences.
One more point, though: the round-trips to the database argument assumes you're using a remote database. Using UNIX sockets you can get as much bandwidth as possible with any other IPC method or even memory transfer. So the problem is the same: our JVM or the database one (since the SP transfers with the database the same amount of data you would transfer from the middle tier)

And another point: the new kid on the Java block, the DSL acronym, advices exactly the opposite: dont' use Java where it doesn't make sense. Use something well-suited: in case of databases, use PLSQL (or the procedural flavour available)

Re:Great news!!

[Cederic]

Erm. Oracle documentation may not be the greatest out there, but it's all available, for free, and covers everything you need to know.

There are admittedly easier ways to find out how to achieve specific tasks (i.e. Google for them) but I've never found the Oracle docs to be any worse than any major software vendor's.

If Sun add JTA support it'll be 'add' not 'replace'. They like Java, sure, but they're not stupid.

LAMP will still be viable, and remember - the A in LAMP comes from an organisation that provides more Java code to businesses than anybody else except Sun.

(no, I can't back up that last statement. I just made it up. But it's probably close to the truth. Feel free to investigate the precise numbers and publish a study on it.)

Why did they buy it?

[LiquidCoooled]

Didn't they know they could just download it and run without paying?

Re:Why did they buy it?

[pleappleappleap]

I'm going to assume you're not being fecetious... They want to sell "official" service contracts.

Re:Why did they buy it?

[Two9A]

On Slashdot, everyone's facetious. I don't expect to be modded Informative for this post, for example ;)

Re:Why did they buy it?

[bytesex]

O my god man - I think you better call mr Joy, Gosling, or whoever is in charge of Stanford University Network these days pronto and tell 'em that. Quick ! There's not a minute to waste ! Think of the money that stand to lose.

Re:Why did they buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean facetious?

Re:Why did they buy it?

[Pollardito]

they probably didn't notice they were clicking the Buy button instead of Download on the website, damned one-click purchase cost them a billion dollars

Re:Why did they buy it?

[Crayon Kid]

This should be modded insightful, not funny. Yes, why did they buy it? The code is out there and can be reimplemented in a manner allowed by the copyright law. Granted, it wouldn't be trivial. But wouldn't it cost less than $1bn?

So what exactly did Sun buy for that cool billion? The assets? The research (hint: MySQL 6)? The developers? The right to re-license future versions as they wish (maybe open source, but maybe not)?

Think hard about that last one in particular. It opens all kinds of possibilites. Frankly, I don't see why one should automatically assume this was a FOSS-friendly move. They could just as well close it off and go make a splash in the closed-source commercial DB market. Or make it Solaris-only. Or whatever. It's theirs now.

Re:Why did they buy it?

[LiquidCoooled]

The serious answer is they bought the brand.
Sure, they can get the source and remake their own database, but whatever they do with it, it won't be mysql.

Re:Why did they buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm pretty sure he meant "fecesious".
Slip of the tongue, I guess. I mean, the finger on the keyboard?

HOO-ah! I'm creeping MYSELF out now.
Let's post this one AC.

Re:Why did they buy it?

[pleappleappleap]

Nope, I meant fecetious. As in "my feces is facetious".

What happens now with Oracle and PostgtreSQL?

[IYagami]

Right now Sun supports PostgreSQL on Solaris (http://www.sun.com/software/products/postgresql/index.jsp) and Oracle is one of the main applications used in Solaris.

I think this is a move to sell support to their customers, like asking: "Do you need an Oracle Database?"
- If the answer is "YES", then we will sell you our servers and OS support
- If the answer is "NO", then we will sell you our servers and OS support AND MySQL / PostgreSQL support

There is a very good entry on a Sun blog about the cost of propietary databases and the "commodization" of this market:
http://blogs.sun.com/jkshah/entry/cost_of_proprietary_database

Re:What happens now with Oracle and PostgtreSQL?

[Ed Avis]

Yes, I would have expected them to buy EnterpriseDB which is an Oracle clone built on Postgres.

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[morgan_greywolf]

Seriously, how the fuck do I view -1, threaded? Try the Prefs link on the far left side of the bar thing at the top.

So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[KeyserDK]

Read the subject.
I thought SUN was currently bundling postgresql guess that wasn't good enough...
So up for discussion why buy mysql?

  * Well you can't buy postgresql.....(Who to buy?)
  * Wanting to hurt redhat
  * You get ownership of the code (Since mysql has)

The "hurting redhat" is more for journalists "lets find a conflict thinking" ...
What else are the reasons?

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[theskipper]

Ulterior motives aside, looking at it from the marketing perspective it presents a nice unified package for the big boys. On the golf course the sales drones will have clear tit-for-tat competition with MS's offerings.

From the official blog:

So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[samkass]

Recently Sun has been open-sourcing all kinds of software to create an ecosystem of software over which they have influence. MySQL is one of the most influential and widespread database engines in existence. In fact, the only thing holding it back appears to be the bizarre licensing of its parent company. If Sun fixes the licensing issues they'll be a hero, be able to influence a major part of the net infrastructure, and have an easy-to-use little database to put in OpenOffice.

It makes a lot of sense to me.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Red Hat and Sun merging in less than 5 years. Getting backed into the same corner they will become allies and corner the market there corner into.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[gnuman99]

PostgreSQL is under BSD license. You can make changes and close source it if you want.

MySQL is GPL with Sun now owning all copyrights. So.... not sure. As a postgresql user, this move puzzles me. PostgreSQL is a database much closer to the proprietary databases than MySQL. From an API perspective, it is kind of like PostgreSQL is the BSD in the UNIX world of proprietary databases, and MySQL is the Windows (aka, non-standard).

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun absolutely wants to hurt Red Hat. Don't fool yourself into thinking that Sun is a friend of open source just because they push it here and there. Given the chance, Sun would prefer to have every corporate user of Linux and OpenSolaris running their expensive closed source version of Solaris instead. In business, as in war, there are no friends, only interests.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope this pushes RedHat into investing more heavily into PostgreSQL. You know, a real RDBMS.

(flame on)

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[rainhill]

>> Wanting to hurt redhat

I wander if licensing allows MySQL to be forked, if so, RedHat may as well just fork MySQL.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[ballmerfud]

...we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web What part of LAMP stands for Sun? And merely buying the 'M' doesn't count.

Re:So why would SUN buy MYSQL - discussion!

[Anonymous Coward]

They could have bought Enterprise DB ,
According to the website
EnterpriseDB employs 30% of the core PostgreSQL maintainers and several recognized community leaders.

Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they will make PostgreSQL the default database engine and just add a MySQL legacy layer on top of it. Sun already has great PostgreSQL support, so it's not such a strange suggestion. Maybe that way MySQL will get ACID support this century.

Re:Hopefully

[Jeppe Salvesen]

MySQL is already ACID. Unlike PostgreSQL, MySQL supports several storage engines - with InnoDB, DBD and Cluster providing ACID. MySQL has indeed supported ACID, subqueries and such since 2005.

It's disheartening to see these kinds of posts get modded as insightful in 2008. Aren't we supposed to be dynamic, informed folks?

Re:Hopefully

[TheSunborn]

How do you make mysql reject a transaction with invalid operations?

Right now, the mysql I use(with innobase), will commit a transaction even if some of the operations(Queries) in it failed. That's not acid behaveour.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

they didn't need to buy it to do that.

Re:Hopefully

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Which MySQL do you use?

Read up. Disable autocommits, issue a BEGIN TRANSACTION, and make sure you check the success of all queries before you perform that COMMIT.

Re:Hopefully

[TheSunborn]

I use 5.0, and the point is, I should not have "check the success of all queries before"

If any part of the transaction fails, there is NO WAY mysql should allow the rest of the transaction to be performed. (That is, a commit on a transaction which contains queries that failed, should be a nop)

The A in acid is ATOMIC, that is "all or nothing".

Re:Hopefully

[TheSunborn]

(And before someone correct me, the atomic is acid, is not what is violated by mysql in this example).

Re:Hopefully

[Henkc]

Does MySQL support: - transactions - stored procedures - triggers - point in time recovery - serious scalability (we're not talking about your grandma's cooking recipes here or your blog posts) - etc Simply answer yes or no. If any one of the above is No, then MySQL cannot be used by any business which has had use of these features in other commercial RDBMS'. PostgreSQL does.

Re:Hopefully

[thrillseeker]

MySQL has indeed supported ... subqueries ... since 2005

Its support of subqueries has severely poor performance when multiple rows are returned in the inner SELECT(s), as I found (again) yesterday.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! MySQL has supported all the requirements for a reasonable RDMBS for a whole three years!.
Oracle has only offered such features for 16 years, so I could see how MySQL AB thought it might be a fad...

Re:Hopefully

[unoengborg]

Yes, MySQL has ACID, triggers, and stored procedures, but it still lacks full support for referential integrety.
Not to mention that you have to go through hoopsl and loops to turn on whatever referential integrety they have. By default it tries to be MySQL 4 compatible where referential checking was wery lax. MySQL also lacks in more normal SQL language. e.g. it lacks "EXCEPT". Try doing relational division without it.

For those of you that don't know what relational divison is, consider an example with the following relations: COURSE(*CourseID, CourseName), STUDENT(*StudentID,StudentName), STUDIES(*CourseID,*StudentID). Now make a query that gives all the students that studies the exact same combination of courses as sdudnet X. I wouldn't even think of doing that in MySQL 5.

Another problem with MySQL, is speed. MySQL have long had a bait and switch tactics where they have told you that they have the fastest database in the world, but didn't tell you that you had to turn off most normal database features to get it. They also forget to tell you that it scales very porly on multiprocessor systems compared to e.g. Postgresql.

Re:Hopefully

[Jeppe Salvesen]

I think that is really a design consideration. I can as an example write to a lookup table upon every insert and rely upon the unique restraint - and know what caused that exact failure. If that cancelled my transaction, I would instead have to first do a select and then an insert if that particular key-value was not in the lookup table. Which solution is most efficient?

And checking the outcome of all queries is absolutely best practice if you want an application that works as expected and that documents its failures.

Re:Hopefully

[einhverfr]

Not to mention the occasional backend crash that can be used for denial of service possibilities....

Actually, I moved from MySQL in 2000 specifically because at the time it didn't have subquery support. I still get frustrated by performance in normalized db's and other things.

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[Anonymous Coward]

see that new bit to the left "32 comments", drag it down.

very web 2.0

Stars are into OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap! The Sun has bought MySQL? I didn't realize astrological entities were into open source. :|

Jonathan Schwartz's Blog

[sucker_muts]

This is quite interesting news! Check out what Jonathan Schwartz has to say about this:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

Re:Jonathan Schwartz's Blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that, Jonathan.

Re:Jonathan Schwartz's Blog

[xtracto]

I don't understand. The last time I read news about MySQL on slashdot the guys were trying to go public. The CEO was even commenting in the /. story and all that. What happened to the IPO? did it happen?

Also, it would be nice for the MySQL guys to comment in this story as well. Of course now that they are pwnd by a corporation, I guess they got NDA-ed to their sitting-cushions.

Re:Jonathan Schwartz's Blog

[Anonymous Coward]

A billion fucking dollars?! After the 4.6billion Sun wasted on StorageTek? I guess we can expect more huge rounds of layoffs at Sun while they export all the replacement positions to HCL in India. But hey, they'll have MySQL! And what happened to postgres? Sun was a huge supporter of postgres and even offered support for it. And doesn't the main postgres guy WORK for Sun now? Sorry, but I'm not going to stick with mysql. I can see that it makes possible financial sense (but a BILLION DOLLARS WORTH?!), but postgresql offers more features and stability and that's what I'll continue to use. "Most people use mysql on the internet" is not a valid reason for my to switch. Especially since postgres did great things like transactions long before mysql did, which is a vital feature.

Oh Shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

This will not end well.

Re:Oh Shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed...

It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[hughk]

I have worked at a lot of big banks. Open Source has been slowly finding its way in, but it is incredibly difficult to deploy an open source database like MySQL or Postgres. The banks says they want safety and security - and you answer that your database isn't enterprise critical so why pay for Oracle? Management then says, ah well, how about MS SQL Server....

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Banks have never been too reticent about spending their (ie your) money - so why would they even think of running open source.

The problem you have is getting justification for it in the first place, but once you've done that you get whatever you want, money no object.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Anonymous Coward]

To which the correct answer is "lower TCO", if you want to get management buy-in. Find some figures that support you - I'm sure there are plenty around. While "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" is generally a good mantra, "nobody ever got fired for saving the company money" is an even surer bet. Particularly if the numbers involved are substantial.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not really the bank that has the say its the FDIC that regulates what a bank can and can not use.

I would prefer to run open source, but as far as the FDIC is concerned it is not "proven" enough to be run in an FDIC approved bank. So a bank is pretty much forced to spend loads of money on less stable software (i.e. Windows).

What coperation would want to spend more money even if "money is not an option"?

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[0racle]

Buy a MySQL license, or EnterpriseDB. Open Source isn't always free of cost or free of support. The EnterpriseDB people will also support vanilla PostgreSQL. AFAIK, those options are cheaper then MSSQL and you still end up with supported databases.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[mlwmohawk]

Sorry, having dealt with both MySQL and PostgreSQL for some time, I think MySQL is far more difficult to deploy in a "professional" setting.

MySQL installs really easily AS LONG AS you let it use its defaults. If you wish to install from source with a user other than MySQL and a database location other than $MYSQLHOME/var, it gets to be a pain and there aren't many docs on their site which are clear and easy to find that provide sufficient instruction.

PostgreSQL, on the other hand is fairly simple:

su $DBUSER
initdb -D $DBLOCATION
pg_ctl -D $DBLOCATION start
exit

Violla! done.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[hughk]

The banks are really allergic to deploying stuff from smaller vendors. The CTO in a bank tends to be really risk averse (yes, strange whilst his colleagues are pissing the bank's money away on dodgy loans and derivatives). It has been very difficult to deploy Linux but it has sort-of become possible over the years (typically RHEL or sometimes SUSE). Personally, I can see the benefit of major databases, but they get expensive when what you are looking for is a light-weight data store and you really don't want the overhead of an enterprise database. Sun is still big and they still sell a lot of backend servers in banks.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[hughk]

No, technical deployment is usually the the least of my worries. The problem with deployment from the management perspective is whether we believe that the company can support as needed for the lifetime of the system. We do get a lot of small systems in for the business but then the business manager signs-off on the waiver. In the case of infrastructure technology, it becomes down to the responsibility of the CTO and if it isn't mainstream, he (he usually is a 'he') won't like the risk when he is halled over the coals for the failure of a major system. With the big databases, Oracale, SyBase or even MS SQL, you can simply say that 'I chose a system already widely deployed in banking'. Having Sun there doesn't mean they bring anything technical to the table, but just there name amkes it a whole lot more acceptable.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[awpoopy]

Next time point out that Gmail runs on MySQL and FTD runs on Postgres.
Google also contributes to the source on MySQL and OpenOffice.org

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[mlwmohawk]

The argument that is basically summed up by "No one got fired for choosing IBM" is why so many companies bloat beyond control. It really is an act of laziness and cowardice.

A good CTO or engineer can research and understand the risks and benefits of using specific technology. A better CTO puts in place risk mitigation, i.e. grow internal talent to handle the new technology.

Having been in the CTO position, and basically following my own advice, I saved my DotCom startup almost $1M dollars on license fees and support contracts. Yes, we went out of business because the business model was flawed, but our technology was on target, did much more than it was expected to, and worked fantastically and because of these steps, we had an extra year that we wouldn't have had otherwise.

This is why small companies are the most innovative.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, how is a database in a bank NOT enterprise critical?

Please give me the name of your bank, so I can make sure never to deposit money there.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Anne Thwacks]

so why would they even think of running open source

For "continuity of supply". I have been shafted twice by Oracle.

What happens if you products such as Oracle Power Objects?

Open Source is always available, Closed source all to easily becomes Open Drain (as in "down the").

And yes I do write transactiona, database applications for a bank. (and yes, I do use PostGreSQL).

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[blane.bramble]

When it's the "Christmas Card" database or somesuch.

Re:It would make MySQL easier to deploy...

[Jozef Nagy]

You're making a common mistake in assuming that every operation in a bank is mission critical. How about a one-off database used to help plan a year-end party? Not mission critical. How about a database used to keep track of who has checked out technical books from IT's library? Not mission critical.

An analogy could be that just because someone works at a prestigious company doesn't mean his job is also prestigious. I could say I work for Microsoft, but I could be a janitor and not a software architect.

Emotional Reaction

[Abuzar]

the immediate reaction upon hearing the news may be a mixture of various feelings, including excitement, pride, disbelief and satisfaction, but also anxiety.

Geeeeeez
Dude, gimme a break. It's only a database!

Re:Digg it

[TheNinjaroach]

No.

OpenOffice

[XB-70]

Base in OpenOffice has always been a disappointment - sadly sidelined as an 'afterthought', base lurches along..

Enter MySQL - combine it with OpenOffice and you finally have a real, integrated database that MS Office can't match. All we need now is a RAD front end for the consumer...

Re:OpenOffice

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, a cool new UI would hit the spot. Something sexy, easy to use, without endless dropdown menus. Call it the Rosette

Re:Rewrite in Java

[glwtta]

Seemed to work out pretty well when Oracle did it with BerkeleyDB JE.

Re:Does anyone know why is my karma rated as terri

[ZeroExistenZ]

I've done it again

By "it", you mean "proved I have nothing worthwhile to do with my time other then sitting here, waiting for a new slashdot post. I'm even too inept to search other places for technology news or to do something significant with my life that I'll one day appear on slashdot in a duped article"?

Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

As a long term PostgreSQL proponent, I'm not sure this is good news or bad. Many of the software stacks in open source, regrettably, use only MySQL. This makes it hard for PostgreSQL at times, but it puts the "owners" of MySQL in an excellent position to help some projects while ignoring others.

Sun owns Java. Sun will soon own MySQL. If you have a Tomcat/J2EE environment running open source, you will soon be having to deal with a single vendor with control over your environment, because most systems only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. Expect the support bills to go up.

On to RedHat and IBM, I think it is time for them to start funding the PostgreSQL project for real. Setup a more corporate entity to guide it and REALLY compensate the guys like Tom, Bruce, et. al. for so much hard work, which IMHO is above and beyond a standard pay check.

Re:Dificult to say...

[teknopurge]

I will be the first to say MySQL is an alter boy compared to the man that is PostgreSQL.

Sun has been supporting Postgres for a while now - the problem is there is no company to buy.

I think you nailed it in that MySQL has more proliferation the way visual basic macros are used by project managers in Excel: people used it because it was easy, not necessarily correct or compliant. Now when people need MySQL support they will be going to sun. All the google's and facebook's of the world are now, de facto bed-buddies with Sun. This was a brilliant strategic move.

I expect PostgreSQL adoption to skyrocket in the next 5 years.

Regards,

Re:Dificult to say...

[imipak]

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Microsoft swallowed that ESR crap about "you can't defeat open source by buying the company". Imagine if they'd seen the light (a black light...) and started shopping for open source or Free software companies. *shudder*

Re:Dificult to say...

[jimicus]

ESR was on the nail. You can't defeat open source by buying the company IF the product has enough people who care about it enough to maintain it, have the appropriate expertise and aren't employed by the company.

There are a lot of important open source projects for which at least one of the above requirements is not true.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mhall119]

Sun owns Java. Sun will soon own MySQL. If you have a Tomcat/J2EE environment running open source, you will soon be having to deal with a single vendor with control over your environment, because most systems only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. Expect the support bills to go up. Sun does not own Tomcat, Apache does. Perhaps you're thinking Glassfish? It doesn't matter really, a well written J2EE app can be moved from Glassfish/MySQL to JBoss/Postgres to Weblogic/Oracle with very little effort. The only thing you would need to be concerned about is SQL syntax compatibility.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Correct Sun does not own Tomcat. I did not mean to imply that it does, my bad.

To clearify: Sun does control the J2EE spec from which Tomcat is specified. Sun does control the Java environment. Sun will soon control the MySQL database.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mhall119]

Sun does control the J2EE spec from which Tomcat is specified True, but then again how many J2EE implementations are there today? Sun isn't even the market leader in this space, obviously they're not using their ownership of the J2EE spec to stop competition. Sun also controls the Java specification, but again there are several independent implementations, though here Sun is the dominant player. Sun can't revoke the license it's already given out for these specs, so I don't think there is any worry about their ownership of them.

Sun will soon control the MySQL database. Yes, but MySQL AB was previously in control of the MySQL database. It's only changing ownership from one corporate entity to another. If it were another company, then maybe I would worry about the future of open-source MySQL, but not with Sun.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Sun also controls the Java specification, but again there are several independent implementations, though here Sun is the dominant player. Sun can't revoke the license it's already given out for these specs, so I don't think there is any worry about their ownership of them.

I think you under estimate flock mentality. If sun changes the spec, and the independent implementations can't because of patents/copyright/etc. than the independents will tend to get less support. We know this is true especially with such a large player.

Yes, but MySQL AB was previously in control of the MySQL database. It's only changing ownership from one corporate entity to another. If it were another company, then maybe I would worry about the future of open-source MySQL, but not with Sun.

That's like saying AMD being bought by Intel is the same as AMD being bought by GE. Corporate motivation is an important aspect of any purchase like this.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mhall119]

I think you under estimate flock mentality. If sun changes the spec, and the independent implementations can't because of patents/copyright/etc. than the independents will tend to get less support. We know this is true especially with such a large player. True, but the fact that Sun is a minority player in J2EE implementations means that if the others don't support the new version of the spec, it will effectively be dead. Besides, I think the spec is written by the JCP, so the other vendors most likely have a say in any changes made.

That's like saying AMD being bought by Intel is the same as AMD being bought by GE. Corporate motivation is an important aspect of any purchase like this. Again true, and I did mention that I thought Sun's motivations were more in line with the open source community that other companies may be. The difference with your analogy is that Sun's acquisition of MySQL doesn't reduce the number of database providers in the market. There is also the fact that Sun isn't the only company that can offer support for Solaris+Glassfish+MySQL, so there won't really be any decrease in competition for support either. If anything, I would hope that the acquisition would provide cheaper bundled support for the entire stack, than individual support for each component.

Re:Dificult to say...

[$1uck]

Sun owns Java. Sun will soon own MySQL. If you have a Tomcat/J2EE environment running open source, you will soon be having to deal with a single vendor with control over your environment, because most systems only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. Expect the support bills to go up.

I think you are forgetting a few things or just trolling, but you're somehow modded +5 insightful so I'll assume the former. Sun doesn't own Tomcat (they do offer their own J2EE stack). You won't have a single vendor in control of your system anymore than you do now. Their all multiple JEE servers supported by multiple vendors, and almost all of them allow you to plug in different db's supported by multiple vendors.

Re:Dificult to say...

[krow]

There are many of us who have been working on MySQL for many years (my efforts with MySQL begin a decade ago). None of us are willing to move away from our open source roots. I've seen nothing that makes me think that Sun had any interest in doing anything foolish. They understand the value of MySQL being open source.

    -Brian

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Sun doesn't own Tomcat (they do offer their own J2EE stack)

Which is essentially the specification for Tomcat, BTW.

Their all multiple JEE servers supported by multiple vendors, and almost all of them allow you to plug in different db's supported by multiple vendors.

I am having a bit of a problem parsing "Their" in this sentence, neither "There," "they're" seem to fit either. But I am assuming you mean to say: "There are multiple"

This is true, but control over the spec J2EE, the environment (Java), and the leading database (by usage, MySQL), is a huge advantage for Sun and they wouldn't be buying MySQL if it didn't give them an advantage over competition. The question: is their advantage a disadvantage for us?

Also, you say "multiple dbs," I don't agree. Most only support MySQL and/or a few of the big guys like Oracle or MSSQL. I find it difficult to get workable support for PostgreSQL a lot of the time.

Re:Dificult to say...

[$1uck]

Sorry about the grammar, I'm distracted while work and trying to post while projects build/apps deploy.

To the point at hand:

I've personally seen tomcat work with HSQL, MySql, MS sql, oracle, and db2. I've seen WebSphere work with HSQL, MySql, and DB2. I've seen Weblogic work with oracle, HSQL, and MySql. Sure this means sun has a nice vertical stack to offer people will they push it? Sure but wouldn't you expect them too? The whole stack could be open source and I believe Sun's offerings specifically are open source. Which means anyone can sell support for it.

Maybe I'm confused when you say only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. I assumed you meant support as in able to actually use the two together as opposed to offering to give you customer support. I've never needed vendor support from any of the Server vendors to get a db hooked up to it.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Sorry about the grammar, I'm distracted while work and trying to post...

I wasn't trying to be a grammar nazi, I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying.

Maybe I'm confused when you say only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. I assumed you meant support as in able to actually use the two together as opposed to offering to give you customer support.

Exactlyy. The ability to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. Most vendors only barely implement a PostgreSQL interface let alone test using it.

Re:Dificult to say...

[poet]

Uh... You realize that Bruce works for a PostgreSQL company... not "The PostgreSQL Company (www.commandprompt.com)" but he does work for EDB and I am sure he is compensated very well. Oh.. and Tom works for Redhat.

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Yes I know they are employed, but it would be good for the core guys to get some stupid money for their years of work and dedication. Don't you think?

Re:Dificult to say...

[$1uck]

I didn't think you we're being a grammar nazi. I didn't bother to re-read what I wrote before posting. I'm just glad it was decipherable.

Exactlyy. The ability to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. Most vendors only barely implement a PostgreSQL interface let alone test using it.

ok now I'm confused. I've never used PostregSql during any development work, I've been meaning to try it at home. Mostly b/c everyone on slahdot is of the opinion its much better than MySql. I try to code in a db agnostic manner, so that any db can be used. So if Postgre will work better I'd like to give it a try. Are you implying that the vendors for Tomcat/Weblogic/WebSphere etc should be supplying the jdbc drivers for postgre? Does postgre not have/offer their own jdbc drivers?

Re:Dificult to say...

[mlwmohawk]

Well, PostgreSQL does have ODBC, JDBC, as well as .NET or what ever drivers, but small differences between databases always creep in. MySQL has some very bad non-standard syntax format that creeps in to many projects. You'll see Oracle, MySQL, and "others" and "others" don't always work. It has been my experience that using PostgreSQL, a fair percentage of the time, isn't well supported and esoteric functions of applications don't always work.

I know that it is a generalization, please don't take it as flamebait, but it has been my experience over the years that people supporting MySQL are often clueless about over SQL issues in general.

Re:Dificult to say...

[T-Ranger]

PostgreSQL adoption: why?

Really, I still have not heard a good reason why one should use - in 2005, let alone today - PostgreSQL over MySQL. Technology wise I've never heard a compelling reason to use PostgreSQL that applies to recent (well, no so recent) versions.

Or are you now concerned about Sun breaking MySQL, or only having Sun as an option for support?

Perhaps it is true that Sun may be the only "official" support provider for MySQL, but there will still be the plethora of quality consultants and other large integrators who can still provide support. PostgreSQL continues to have exactly 0 official support providers - and I suspect a slightly smaller plethora of consultants. So how is this different then yesterday?

Re:Dificult to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun owns Java. Sun will soon own MySQL. If you have a Tomcat/J2EE environment running open source, you will soon be having to deal with a single vendor with control over your environment, because most systems only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. Expect the support bills to go up.

I think we have a different definition of "single vendor with control over your environment".

Mine goes something like this: Microsoft has the source code to the product. Microsoft is the only one with source code to the product. Anything I want to do with the product that it doesn't support, I have only one vendor to call: Microsoft. I have to pay whatever they want, because they are they only game in town.

Mine specifically does not include: Source code to the product is available to anybody with an internet connection. Anybody can dig into that source code and make modifications for me. Anything I want to do with the product that it doesn't support is a simple SourceForge Marketplace, Rent-a-Coder, Job Posting on Monster.com, ad in my local newspaper, or trip to my local bookstore; away from finding development expertise. I pay what the open market allows or do it myself.

I would call Sun the "steward" of these products; without any control over what I choose to do with this free (as in speech) software.

How does your definition go again?

Re:Dificult to say...

[jalet]

If only I could mod you up !

Re:Dificult to say...

[teknopurge]

PostgreSQL adoption: why? I think PgSQL is a better database.

-It's sql92 compliant and always has been - not so of mysql
-Pg has had little things like transaction support and subselects forever.... mysql? ha!
-Pg is more stable - by far.

The list really should end there.

Regards,

Re:Dificult to say...

[Fastball]

I'm not so sure I want to see successful open source projects gobbled up by corporate interests. I appreciate the transparency and pace of development that open source projects enjoy. You could say I admire the guidance those projects have enjoyed. Too often big software companies, I've seen support costs rise too much while transparency into the direction that software is being taken has been withdrawn. It's like big software companies are places where good code and software goes to die. I hope this will not be the case with MySQL.

Re:Dificult to say...

[T-Ranger]

In reverse order:

-In all the discussions/debates I've seen about PG/MySQL, stability has never been brought up. And I've never had stability issues with MySQL, nor do I know of any one else that has.

-Standards compliance with database servers is next to pointless.. Its an interesting target, but all vendors provide not quite the same compliance level. Missing things, or extensions.

-Current, recent, and not-so-recent version of MySQL also have transaction and subselect support. I wouldn't install a 5 year old version today, and I don't expect to tomorrow.

And finally: your opinion counts very little (for me), and I doubt it counts much more for the general population.

But you never really my real question (which wasn't stated explicitly, I grant).. How is Suns purchase of MySQL AB going to make PG be used more?

Re:Dificult to say...

[doom]

T-Ranger wrote:

PostgreSQL adoption: why?
Really, I still have not heard a good reason why one should use - in 2005, let alone today - PostgreSQL over MySQL. Technology wise I've never heard a compelling reason to use PostgreSQL that applies to recent (well, no so recent) versions.

You're not looking hard enough. Postgresql reportedly scales better (to higher load, and also for multiple processors), and it's had serious RDBMS features for much longer than mysql: I wouldn't assume that mysql has done much more than seize bullet-points without confirming that the features really work... and since most mysql users don't really care about advanced RDBMS features, I doubt they're getting exercised that heavily.

Re:Dificult to say...

[MichaelSmith]

On to RedHat and IBM, I think it is time for them to start funding the PostgreSQL project for real.

A compatibility layer for running mysql apps with postgres, if such a thing is possible, would be fantastic.

Re:Dificult to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely, any enterprisey feature MySQL AB used to disparage but eventually added should not be assumed to work. We once found out the hard way that triggers weren't running because they couldn't replicate from the master, and redesigned the feature rather than bet the company on a beta from those cowboys.

Re:Dificult to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoy MySQL. It's cheap and simple. I HATE Java (fuck that retarded icon) and Solaris (Linux is easier).

Hello MS SQL Express.

Re:Dificult to say...

[rainhill]

Also, change the name for god sake, it's harder to pronounce post-gre-sql than write sql statements on it.

Re:Dificult to say...

[jrumney]

If you have a Tomcat/J2EE environment running open source, you will soon be having to deal with a single vendor with control over your environment, because most systems only give lip service to PostgreSQL but fully support MySQL. Expect the support bills to go up.

In the J2EE world, this is less of a problem than PHP etc, due to the fact that database access is abstracted through JDBC. Usually the problems in prepackaged J2EE apps are limited to the database initialization scripts, and if the app is at all popular PostgreSQL versions of these scripts will be available.

Re:Dificult to say...

[teknopurge]

I'm not trying to be cute, but here is a google link to mysql issues. I've heard plenty of horror stories from users who can't figure out why their tables become spontaneously corrupt... It happened to a popular forum we host 2 weeks ago.

Not that my opinion matters, but why do I think Pg adoption will increase? Because years back Sun had the choice to push any DB they wanted - even MySQL. They chose Postgres, and as an architect I can see many reasons why. Their purchase of MySQL means overnight they have a new list of clients including google and facebook. Brilliant sales move but that speaks nothing to the technical merits of MySQL. Don't get me wrong, MySQL has it's place, but it's not in the enterprise IMO. I see it more as an Access replacement for smaller/cobbled together apps, not to say it hasn't been hacked to run large apps, but Pg doesn't need hacking by a google, who was nice enough to contribute their hacks back to the MySQL project.

Before you ask why they didn't buy Pg I'll tell you - there is no company to buy.

Regards,

Re:Dificult to say...

[teknopurge]

...We once found out the hard way that triggers weren't running because they couldn't replicate from the master.... Eh boy........

Oracle in Java

[wikinerd]

This means that now more people may prefer to use MySQL rather than Oracle with Java, as they will see it as the most "compatible" database to be used within Java.

Re:Oracle in Java

[Shados]

Except that in general, Java is used for backend enterprise solutions on top of the J2EE stack, including business intelligence and such... so you're talking of people who think that even Oracle's features "aren't enough yet". I doubt they'd go for a "lighter" one just because of something like this.

what about postgres

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a die hard postgres user for about 3 years and this news scares the crap out of me. Sun has been using postgres as a backend option for Solaris log functionality and they contribute to the project regularly. My fear is that postgres will be discarded in favor of the shiny new toy

Re:what about postgres

[Shados]

Postgres is already maintained by third party companies and such... if it was to be bought, a -few- forks would probably still live on. Though, MySQL's copyright was assigned to a single company of its own...is Postgres the same? I'd guess it would be different.

Re:what about postgres

[rdeleonp]

Postgres is already maintained by third party companies and such... if it was to be bought, a -few- forks would probably still live on. Though, MySQL's copyright was assigned to a single company of its own...is Postgres the same? I'd guess it would be different.

PostgreSQL is a community project, and a group of companies provide support and related services. There's no one to buy, so no single company can have absolute control.

Aaah, crap...

[jaxtherat]

There goes another independent and relatively good quality FOSS product. Extra managementy foo and "vision" can only bollocks up the whole show :/ Sigh

Re:Aaah, crap...

[Isaac-Lew]

You *could* fork it, you know.

Re:Aaah, crap...

[jaxtherat]

I know, but unfortunately I'm a fairly lousy developer, being more on the documentation side of FOSS contribution. What made MySQL different was that they were corporate entity as well as an open source database, which made it a bit easier to convince pointy haired manager to use MySQL.

Re:Aaah, crap...

[falconwolf]

There goes another independent and relatively good quality FOSS product. Extra managementy foo and "vision" can only bollocks up the whole show :/ Sigh

How do you know mySQL will go bad? Do you have reason to believe it will or are you guessing?

Falcon

Re:Aaah, crap...

[jaxtherat]

Well, two reasons.

1. I don't think that (other than Servers) Sun produces any decent products.
2. Look what Novell did to Ximian, Suse and (by association) Gnome.

These are personal views mind you, so feel free to disagree.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[cbrocious]

MySQL is the fastest DB engine... ?

RIP? Isn't that kinda old tech?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand. You're saying Sun is going to design a new MySQL engine based on the RIP protocol? What a strange move indeed...

RAD frontend?

[Connie_Lingus]

ive been using Navicat for my mySql frontend and while its not perfect at least it doesn't suck...

Wait!

[Nephrite]

TFA says: Sun Microsystems announced plans to acquire MySQL AB.. Not bought yet.

A surprising move

[downix]

When I talked to some Solaris guys about MySQL, I had nothing but grief from them about it. They kept hyping up postgresql. Now I wonder if I log into that forum now if they shall change their tunes any.

Re:A surprising move

[IYagami]

...and I think that Solaris users are right.

You cand find several test about the scalability of MySQL vs PostgreSQL in tweakers.net:

http://tweakers.net/reviews/649/9
MySQL vs PostgreSQL / Solaris vs Linux
"In contrast to all MySQL versions that we tried, PostgreSQL scales almost perfectly. With a load of ten simultaneous users, the step from one to two cores yields on average an performance increase of 114%, going to four cores improves things by 96%, and the increase to eight cores adds another 77%. This means that eight cores deliver 7.4 times as much as a single core. Another relief in comparison to MySQL comes in the form of stable performance after the maximum is reached: collapses as we saw in MySQL when the loads exceed the servers capacities do not occur. When we only take the heavy loads at the end of the graph into consideration, the lines appear to flatten out, which means that the scaling behaviour is even better: the gains of the core doublings to 2, 4, and 8 are respectively 122%, 104% and 98%, in other words, the performance between one and eight cores differs on average by a factor of nine."

http://tweakers.net/reviews/657/6
MySQL 4.1 vs MySQL 5.0 vs PostgreSQL 8.2dev / Linux Kernel 2.6.15 vs. 2.6.18
Scaling from 1xcore to 2xdual_core:
* My SQL 4.1: +56%
* My SQL 5.0: +40% (this is NOT an errata, 5.0 scales worse than 4.1)
* PostgreSQL 8.2dev: +224%

Re:A surprising move

[dave87656]

When I talked to some Solaris guys about MySQL, I had nothing but grief from them about it. They kept hyping up postgresql. Now I wonder if I log into that forum now if they shall change their tunes any.

Sun may be positioning the two products for different applications: PG for production systems and MySQL for Web applications.

It's a scam!

[pain]

Hey Sun, don't fall for this scam. It doesn't even support full outer joins.

Re:Digg it

[theskipper]

"Don't digg me, bro." --Slashdot

Licensing

[sribe]

Wow, MySQL owned by a company that doesn't lie about the GPL! This is welcome news!

Another sale this morning - BEA to Oracle

[(H)elix1]

Short version - Oracle offered 19.23 or so, and BEA said yes this morning. Big impact on a lot of Java EE developers out there.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[Grey_14]

Sure, like /dev/null is the fastest place to write backups to.

Great news

[Lisandro]

I can't wait for them to rewrite it in Java!

Holy sh!^

[Bright Apollo]

The most anticipated IPO of 2008 becomes a non-issue.

So... do we buy Sun stock now? Do we wait until Sun screws it up, then spins it off for the IPO?

It's like calling off the election this year. Well, not really...

-BA

ACs abused /. past a tipping point..now they cry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Newton's 3rd law is a bitch.

Google?

[poena.dare]

Google's plan to host ALL our applications.
By Robert X. Cringely

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20071026_003304.html ...

MySQL AB, the Sweden- and Cupertino-based primary developer of MySQL, recently laid out its development road map all the way through 2009, and this includes code specifically contributed by Google, which signed a contributor agreement with MySQL last fall.

Here is what's significant about Google putting code into MySQL: they haven't done it before. Google has been a MySQL user from almost the very beginning, customizing the database in myriad ways to support Google's widely dispersed architecture with hundreds of thousands of servers. Google has felt no need previously to contribute code to MySQL. So what changed? While Google has long been able to mess with the MySQL code in ITS machines, it hasn't been able to mess with the code in YOUR machine and now it wants to do exactly that. The reason it will take so long to roll out MySQL 6.1 is that Google will only deliver its MySQL extensions for Linux, leaving MySQL AB the job of porting that code to the 15 other operating systems they support. That's what will take until early 2009. ...

Uh...

[vegiVamp]

Sun Query Language ?

&mode=thread&threshold=-1

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Note that the syntax for threaded is "thread", not "threaded":

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/16/135243&mode=thread&threshold=-1

Personally, if I want to read every single comment posted to a thread [no pun intended], then I prefer "nested", which is indeed "nested", not "nest":

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/16/135243&mode=nested&threshold=-1

Go figure.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[Skater]

I use MySQL pretty heavily (and, yes, I'm aware of the issues) but this made me laugh out loud. Thanks! :)

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[CastrTroy]

I'm still using the old comment system. I'm not sure how you get it to do that , but I don't think I ever switched.

The Dot in .com

[PineHall]

From the blog it looks like Sun is trying to own a complete web solution. The blog makes a big deal out of getting the 'M' in LAMP. I think they want to be known as the dot in .com again, the place to go for web solutions.

Re:The Dot in .com

[rhizome]

The blog makes a big deal out of getting the 'M' in LAMP. I think they want to be known as the dot in .com again, the place to go for web solutions.

I'm guessing it'll be just a small twist on the old BASF ad campaign, something like, "We don't make websites work, we make websites work...better."

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[coolGuyZak]

Beware, they recently added a feature that guerrilla-spams you with ThinkGeek ads. Ugh.

wheelbarrow

[Anonymous Coward]

select $1,000,000,000 from SUN into MyPockets. Who would say no? The wheelbarrow image is most appropriate image for this story...

Re:I dunno

[TheSpoom]

Only one way to find out!

Sun reconsiders MySQL Acquisition

[Anonymous Coward]

...shortly after mysql.com is slashdotted.

"We always liked PostgreSQL better anyway..."

Oracle

[MajinBlayze]

Doesn't Oracle own rights to the only ACID-complient MySql Transaction engine?

Re:Oracle

[Wiseman1024]

No, MySQL is working on another engine (Falcon), and there are third-party (and still GPL) transactional engines like Solid.

Bank database that's not enterprise critical...

[Anonymous Coward]

The banks says they want safety and security - and you answer that your database isn't enterprise critical so why pay for Oracle? Management then says, ah well, how about MS SQL Server....

Any database at a bank that's not "enterprise critical" is bound to be less than 4GB in size, or else it would automatically be deemed "enterprise critical". Oracle gives away the XE database for free, but it has a 4GB size limit. I use XE for all kinds of stuff , even some "enterprise critical" applications in my organization where our big databases are the full Oracle Enterprise and Standard versions, but where I need something smaller and to run on separate boxen. The XE database has pretty much the full PL/SQL language support built-in and it's trivial to make over-the-net database links between XE and a big database so I can use simple SQL to remote tables to grab a subset of data from the big database without any cumbersome export/import junk in the middle.

Yes they all work like slaves

[BillGod]

Are you comparing working at google like being a slave in the 1800's? Must be the swimming pool, 5 star restaurant, lounge, roller hockey. I could go on but I think everyone here gets my point and agrees with you 100%

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[TheGratefulNet]

the benefits are only there on the surface.

but what good are they if you are bound and 'forced' to work until 9pm each nite? or made to feel guilty if you DON'T stay for dinner and work a few hours after that.

all for the SAME PAY.

yes, its a slave life. you'll understand that when you get older (no insult intended; I didn't realize this until I hit over 40, myself.)

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Attaturk]

the benefits are only there on the surface. but what good are they if you are bound and 'forced' to work until 9pm each nite? or made to feel guilty if you DON'T stay for dinner and work a few hours after that. all for the SAME PAY. yes, its a slave life.

I'm not entirely sure you know what slavery is.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[FinestLittleSpace]

You sound 15, not 40. Whilst I'm sure that Google are quite hard to work for, noone is FORCING anyone to work overtime. You make the choice to turn up for work - don't like it, don't go.

I hate sweatshop-esq software houses as much as anyone and have worked in companies close to that in the past but it's bullshit that anyone is 'forced' to work like that. It's not like I condone the company's behaviour but it's simply not true that it is anywhere near 'slavery'.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst I'm sure that Google are quite hard to work for, noone is FORCING anyone to work overtime. You make the choice to turn up for work - don't like it, don't go.

Translation: "I'm a chump who works overtime for nothing." Don't be surprised when your hard work starts to be taken for granted.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[FinestLittleSpace]

Very bad translation and it simplifies a very broad issue.

Working unpaid overtime is agreed in the contract at the start, at least here in the UK - whether legal or not in EU laws, you accept it. Some jobs I've accepted that as I've enjoyed the job enough to choose to do overtime for my enjoyment, knowing that the project wouldn't even get off the ground if it weren't for more-time-invested-than-is-money-in-the-pot. This type of work especially applies to advertising where the client doesn't have the funds but you want to produce, regardless of their funds, something really fantastic for your own pleasure/portfolio/learning. Some jobs I've refused unless overtime is paid in full - it depends on the nature of the work but it doesn't make you a chump to spend more time on a product than you're paid because you know career wise (CV, portfolio work) it will pay dividends.

If you feel so strongly about unpaid overtime, don't sign a contract saying that you'll do it for free.

As a manager of a coding team I have always made it extremely clear to project managers that they are getting no overtime out of my team unless the team consent to it or the accounts team agree overtime pay. I'm all for defending teams and readily do so and discourage overtime by quoting realistic deadlines, so this way if they choose to work overtime, they're not 'chumps', they're just keen on the work.

It's also worth noting that in the past I have worked overtime because someone /else/ in the chain of work is putting more hours in than they are being granted in pay. So sometimes it's as much about caring for your fellow colleagues as it is being a 'chump'.

It's amazing how some people on Slashdot seem to have a cube mentality which suggests that work is a sterile, non-interactive environment. It really isn't in my experience.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[TooMuchToDo]

The chains don't have to be physical.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Attaturk]

If your chains aren't physical you can usually quit the job. Sure that might make life harder for you but it's a pretty far cry from slavery and even indentured service. When there are still real slaves in the world it's pretty difficult to listen to wealthy, privileged and well-educated Americans complaining that Google's fat paycheck is equivalent to slavery in any way, shape or form.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Yold]

maybe its you who doesn't understand the meaning slavery in the context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[TheGratefulNet]

when the word is used figuratively, yes, I full well know what it means.

you are bound by 'golden handcuffs'. been there done that at many silicon valley 'big name' companies. you are locked in for shares and they got you by the 'nads. even worse if you are h1b - then you are afraid to leave the company or your clock gets reset (so to speak).

I know full well what this is. having bills makes you a slave and when they trick you into thinking you HAVE to work nites and weekends, you are trading what few short years you have on this earth to some cold heartless corporation.

again, in my 20's and 30's I bought this BS hook line and sinker. I worked late hours, 'mandatory' weekends and all that. gave up my home life for the company.

it was not a fair trade. folks, please don't EASILY give up your home life and spare time. don't learn this lesson too late, like I did.

no, its not slavery like in the old days; but I assumed some sophistication on the part of the reader to understand the context of that word. I guess it was lost on some people..

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I'm not entirely sure you know what slavery is.
>> by Attaturk

... and Attaturk would know !!

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's certainly not "slavery like in the old days".

I'm well aware of the point you're trying to make. Hyperbole is not well suited to it. I think you need to understand that, given the passion and lack of subtlety with which you're making the point, your particular choice of words can comes across as both arrogant and ignorant to those of us that are aware that slavery still exists, for example. To say that "being made to feel guilty" or "having bills" is in any way comparable to real slavery, be it "olden days" slavery or contemporary slavery is somewhat tactless wouldn't you say?

If you'll forgive me for making a personal point, I suspect you're well fed, relatively healthy, have a roof over your head and most of those bills are for things that some, if not most, would consider luxuries. Even if I and any other readers would be a million miles off on those assumptions, it's still probably fair to say that your life circumstances offer a pretty stark contrast to those of a real slave. It's therefore hard to hear you quite assuredly compare your situation to that of someone malnourished, physically abused, kept in tortuous conditions and really forced to do all manner of ghastly labour and services against their will.

I'm not picking a fight with you or your point. I would humbly beg and suggest however that you tone down the "it's a slave's life" stuff.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[Mjlner]

I'm not entirely sure you know what slavery is.

I'm not entirely sure you know the term "wage slave", which is perfectly common in modern parliance.

Re:Yes they all work like slaves

[TheGratefulNet]

yes, its a slave life.

it seems this expression was not well understood, universally. and that would make sense, I guess; since many posters do well point out that real actual slavery does exist today. this was a word that has both a hard and a soft meaning, based on context. the missing word was wage. its full name is wage slave. so 'working like a slave' is, in the US at least, the softer form and not meant to refer to actual physical forced slavery.

reading the comments, I did see that it was mis-interpreted. sorry if the expression I used offended anyone. that was not my intention. I just wanted to convey the level of pressure that you are under to come in each day and stay till late nite hours. friends, *that* is why there are dinners. (I've worked at places that had dinners and yes, we were 'encouraged' to stay quite a bit later after that.) lots of free hours for the employers - and the employers just *love* that. dinner is cheap. your 'extra' hours are worth real value.

don't let your youth be drained by the corporations. find a balance and try to not let them take more and more of your time away from you. perhaps a better word would have been 'trap' instead of even 'wage slave'.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[LarsWestergren]

Damn it! Now they will rewrite it in Java. It will no longer be the fastest database engine, after the rewrite, it will certainly be the slowest.

Sun already has an embeddable db engine written in Java called Derby. It has pretty impressive features and performance.

lets ram binary, GPL-only data into ODF !

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an arbitrary, non-standardised binary blob in your OpenOffice file, that can only be read by paying money to Sun for a MySQL proprietary license [ oh, or binning the LGPL for OO.o, and moving to GPL - thus loosing the ability to write your own plugins, or use non-GPL[v-whatever] ones ].

Google Agism

[Anonymous Coward]

After a couple of phone interviews in which I did (according to the feedback) exceptionally well, I went to Google for an interview. The first couple of people I talked to I think I did OK with, felt relaxed and confident. Then after lunch (where I was easily the oldest person in the room), I had two interviewers who (it felt like) took one look at me and just got hostile. One posed several questions to which there was only one non-obvious solution he would accept and did his best to demean me for not getting those solutions. The other posed a more reasonable, but quite difficult, problem in a fairly confrontational way and my solution was (in large part because of that and because of the previous interviewer who left me just a bit angry) workable but far from good - I didn't know the java class that would have made the whole thing easy. Now this could have been deliberate stress testing, but it didn't come off that way and left me with a very bad taste about Google's hiring and personnel practices. I didn't get the job, but by the end of the interview I wasn't at all sure I'd have taken one if offered.

just as with OO.o 'good' steward ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun has repeatedly screwed over the OpenOffice community: making it incredibly difficult to contribute, and refusing/re-writing any code they cannot own exclusively, and turn into proprietary software: cf. Kohei's solver. Apparently they intend to be just as loving with MySQL - so, one can only conclude that in the absence of real open-ness, Sun is on a steady downwards trajectory.

Re:just as with OO.o 'good' steward ...

[headLITE]

MySQL already requires contributors to sign over rights on contributed source code. No change.

Brian Reid - time bomb in Scribe

[byolinux]

Reid agreed to insert a set of time-dependent functions (called "time bombs") that would deactivate freely copied versions of the program after a 90-day expiration date. To avoid deactivation, users paid the software company, which then issued a code that defused the internal time-bomb feature.

<sarcasm>What a guy!</sarcasm>

Re:Brian Reid - time bomb in Scribe

[kubrick]

Putting shareware restrictions on software makes someone an evil genius, does it?

I'll say the same thing I say to all the people who whinge about the GPL -- if you don't like the license, don't use the software.

Re:Brian Reid - time bomb in Scribe

[byolinux]

IIRC, Scribe was under a license akin to something like a BSD license today, but when he no longer had time to maintain it, sold it and forced users who wanted to continue using it, to agree to some fairly obnoxious license, which included the time bomb.

Excuse me for not having much sympathy for him getting fired.

Sure.

[hey!]

Here's one that I've noticed, and which other database professionals I've talked to have corroborated. Access, when executing a query against an outside database, sometimes confuses an unique constraint as a candidate primary key. This seems like a teeny little quibble, but it has really bad consequences.

Consider the columns (a,b) and the value (a = X, b is null). If (a,b) is part of the primary key, the value (X,NULL) cannot occur in a table. But the idea of "uniqueness" is not as well defined in relational theory. Can the values (X,NULL) occur if (a,b) is constrained to be unique? Well, probably. Can it occur more than once? Now that turns out to be a very interesting question.

Let's consider a single column (s), where s is defined to be unique, but is allowed to be null. (s) cannot be part of the primary key of course, but can null occur more than once in the table? The answer is, yes, for both practical and theoretical reasons. The practical reason is that this turns out to be a quite useful behavior. Suppose s represents a social security number on a person record. In some cases that person has declined to provide is SSN, in which case we must put a null in that column. So two or more people can provide null for their social security number, thus many rows can have null there; but if two people provide the SAME SSN, that's an error.

The theoretical justification for nulls behavior in unique constraints comes from that fact that the expression (null == null) should evaluate to false. The expression (s = null) is ALWAYS false, even if the column s happens to contain null. That is because null as a value has special meanings; it can mean "doesn't apply" or "don't know". If s is the SSN, and record a and record b both have null in them, then how do we interpret the expression (a.s = b.s)? If it means do the records for a and b have the same value in column s, you'd want it to be true. If it means does person a have the same ssn as person b, you'd want it to be an error. If it means is person a known to have the same ssn as person b, you'd want the answer to be no. Each of these interpretations has its justifications, but the last one is the one that is ultimately the most practical. If we want to test whether a column is null, we must use the "is" operator, not the equality operator.

So, the apparently minor distinction between key candidacy and uniqueness is quite large if any of the columns involved are allowed to contain nulls.

Now, for the practical consequences of getting this wrong. If you use Access' GUI tools to build queries against tables in an external database, Access when running that query does not allow the external database to optimize the query. You need to do a pass through for that. Instead, Access attempts to optimize the query itself, particularly I/O over the database link, which is presumably expensive.

So lets say table p is people and table r is region, and both tables are held on an Oracle database. I want to do a query which joins person to region to make a table of names and the regions they live in. Now it happens that Alice (person #25) and Bob (person #82) live in the same region, "North". The query correctly spits out ("Alice","North"), then continues on to Bob's record. Now it turns out that both Alice and Bob have refused to supply the SSN, so they both have null in column s.

What happens next is pretty mysterious, but I think we can infer two things. First, Access gets the issue of (null = null) wrong; at least some parts of Access do some of the time. Second, Access may be attempting to reduce external I/O, but it somehow tracks by what it thinks is the primary key. Whatever the cause, one often gets the sequence:

("Alice","North")
("Alice","North")

instead of:

("Alice","North")
("Bob","North")

which would be the correct one.

Oops.

I'd give you more information on reproducing this, but I don't use Access much. Like I said, I have talked to other da

Re:Sure.

[JumpinJeff]

The practical reason is that this turns out to be a quite useful behavior. Suppose s represents a social security number on a person record. In some cases that person has declined to provide is SSN, in which case we must put a null in that column. So two or more people can provide null for their social security number, thus many rows can have null there; but if two people provide the SAME SSN, that's an error.

Or you could normalize the data. If you're expecting missing SSN's from multiple people, a separate SSN table would be required. This table would contain two columns - PersonID and SSN. A person without a SSN listed would not be included in the table, thus solving the multi-null problem.

Re:Sure.

[hey!]

Well, that's a very interesting suggestion, at least from a mathematical standpoint. It would probably fix the Access problem.

Depending on whether you consider NULL to be a value or not, any table with an unique column or set of columns that can be null cannot be in a normal form higher than the third (if it is a value) or fourth (if it is not).

However 3NF is a perfectly "legal" form for a relational design (as is 1NF for that matter), so my statement stands. A correct database should produce a correct result on any table, no matter what its level of normalization.

Re:Sure.

[jadavis]

But the idea of "uniqueness" is not as well defined in relational theory.

It's a problem with three-valued logic (3VL, i.e. TRUE/NULL/FALSE), not relational theory. 3VL and uniqueness don't fit well together, because the intuitive definition of uniqueness is based on 2VL (two-valued logic, i.e. TRUE/FALSE). 3VL has similar problems with other operators and constraints, because people generally reason in 2VL, and many transformations (changing one expression into a distinct, but equivalent expression) that are legal in 2VL are illegal in 3VL.

Relational theorists are well aware of these problems, and many suggest abandoning 3VL completely (or any n-VL where n > 2). Out of the remainder, probably not many agree with SQL's odd version of 3VL.

Re:Sure.

[encoderer]

Actually, a fully normalized schema eliminates the NEED for NULL as a datatype.

Any columns that currently can be NULL would be put in their own table. You'd LEFT JOIN the table and anybody that declined to provide a SSN would simply return a NULL in that column.

NULL's are returned, but they are not STORABLE data, which makes a lot of sense, since NULL is "void of value"

Re:Sure.

[hey!]

You are right that decomposing tables and left outer joining them back together again eliminates the need for nulls, but it is not the case that such as design is automatically more normalized. That's only the case if the nullable column is the determinant of a functional dependency, or if its part of a candidate key (which it can't be). Of course, this is a technical quibble.

In any case, correct handling of 1NF is required for a database to be considered correct.

Re:Sure.

[einhverfr]

Given that normalization definitions deal with data dependencies, I dont see how this is a normalization question.

It is a valid database design question but I would be inclined to use NULL in that table unless I expected at least one person not to have a valid SSN. In which case I would break it off.

SSN is functionally dependant on the person if it exists for the person. However, if the person does *not* have a SSN, then it is not functionally dependant for every portion of the set.

However, nothing prevents you in PostgreSQL from defining a pseudo-Primary Key with NULLS. Something like:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX foo ON bar(baz) WHERE abc IS NULL;

In that case, X, NULL can only occur once in a table. That can be useful behavior too, for example when you have a table like:
CREATE TABLE tax (
coa_id INT NOT NULL REFERENCES coa(id),
rate NUMERIC NOT NULL,
expires DATE,
);

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX foo ON tax(coa_id, expires);
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX bar ON tax(coa_id) WHERE expires IS NULL;

This allows you to have one rate for each account which is expected to be valid until some unknown point in the future.

Re:Sure.

[Eivind Eklund]

They were talking MySQL. In MySQL, NULL=NULL, at least in WHERE...

Eivind.

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Prefs link on the far left side of the bar thing at the top.

How about making the controls viewable and usable without Javashit?

Some of us stopped running Javashit on Slashdot when stuff like this appeared at the bottom of each page:

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-32013-5";
_udn = "slashdot.org";
urchinTracker();

Explain to me again why I should trust whatever's in Slashdot's Javashit when they're willing to do this via Google's?

ENTERPRISE

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be a bit of a problem. Sun is focused on Java enterprise bloat. Check out anything from them. It's all "professional scalable turnkey enterprise business solutions that create synergy, empower your enterprise, discover business logic, optimize cash flows and convert visitors into customers". Everything they do is inoculated with more worthless business-speak than source lines of code it has, their Java enterprise platform is an stinking overengineered piece of bloat based on a failure of a language that manages to combine the disadvantages of imperative programming with the disadvantages of object oriented programming (note: not that it's a remotely good OOP language), and none of the advantages of functional programming. Their business strategy is to confuse, bloat and make you insane, and you know how Java projects go. A 5 men Java project that goes on forever can be done by just a Python programmer, if you quit all the enterprise crap and know how to program (using a proper language).

MySQL 6 is in the forge, but what's in for MySQL 7? Java for MySQL? Having to cope with half of the Java enterprise bloat and twelve paragraphs of business-speak nonsense just to get it working?

They did this for two reasons:

1. Oracle's pricing per core is hurting Sun, as they have processors with many cores and Oracle licenses cost a fortune to Sun's customers ($150000 for a Niagara processor). MySQL prices per server.

2. To break LAMP and try to attract as many gullible fools as possible to Java. PHP, Python and Ruby are going up and Java is going down in popularity. The problem is they can't buy "LAMP" out. So they buy what they can and try to screw it up. The smarter people will replace the "M", but some may attempt to replace the "P". While on it, maybe they can get the "L" replaced too.

Re:ENTERPRISE

[dave87656]

Oracle's pricing per core is hurting Sun, as they have processors with many cores and Oracle licenses cost a fortune to Sun's customers ($150000 for a Niagara processor). MySQL prices per server.

Yes, but they've been promoting Postgresql, which is completely free and has better performance than MySQL now. Why aren't they promoting that?

Perhaps, if they control MySQL, it will help them promote PG?

While on it, maybe they can get the "L" replaced too.

What would they replace it with?

Re:ENTERPRISE

[Wiseman1024]

"What would they replace it with?" - An "S"

Managers have an Oracle bias even in small shops

[wikinerd]

Even though MySQL can be obtained for free, I have seen many small companies using heavyweight Oracle under Java for no particular reason, just because a clueless PHB thinks that since big companies use Oracle then it must be the best. Hopefully the fact that MySQL and Java are now under the same umbrella will help the greater adoption of open source and free software in the database world.

Now that SUN owns MySQL

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they'll fvck over PHP which imo the best programming language around for doing database and web work to keep Java servlets and J2EE chugging along. Good thing I know my Java.

Can Sun overcome suspicion in OS community

[E5Rebel]

Glyn Moody in his Open Enterprise blog says, "By buying MySQL, Sun clearly wants to buy into the LAMP stack and success -- and push out GNU/Linux, either with OpenSolaris for those startups according to Sun's Schwartz or with the full-fig Solaris for the "traditional" (= boring and conservative) enterprises. It's a clever plan that makes sense on paper, but it remains to be seen whether LAMP will get junked in favour of SAMP. I doubt it, personally, because despite all the excellent work Sun has done in the field of open source, there remain lingering suspicions, fuelled by its insistence on retaining significant control over both Java and OpenOffice.org." He is right, but isn't this the problem with all industry giants playing with open source? http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open-source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=376"

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[morgan_greywolf]

Use NoScript and allow Slashdot, but disallow google-analytics if you don't like it.

Honestly, Google Analytics is a service that analyzes a site's traffic patterns and reports on what the best keywords and ad campaigns and such are. Nothing really nefarious.

But, I digress -- using NoScript alone and allowing only Slashdot.org will block almost all the ads and Google Analytics.

And, no, I don't feel bad doing it because I'm a subscriber.

Spreadsheet/Database

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

A few thoughts about spreadsheets as databases and the like...

• The original marketing of Lotus 123 stressed its use as a database. 123 stood for 1=spreadsheet, 2=database. and 3=word processor. Excel still has 13 choices on its |Data menu. Lotus was a bloody awful word processor. Copy Con was better.
• Back in the early DOS days, I used to use a flat file database called Professional File a lot. dBaseIII was overkill for what I needed.
• In the later Dos days I was using Quattro Pro a lot for my spreadsheet work. I also used it for inventory lists, but hardware limitations, both RAM and drive storage were a problem when spreadsheet databases got over 200 records. Paradox worked better both for loading in memory and for much smaller file size than Quattro Pro for the same number of records.
• In spite of its many faults, I use Access for mail merge data rather than the @#$%ing awful thing in Word.
• I use Access for a database more than I use Excel, but sometimes Excel is simpler.
• I would love to see a single-user desktop database program with modest relational capabilities, intuitive query and report functions, and decent ability to import and export data.

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[Archangel Michael]

"I would love to see a single-user desktop database program with modest relational capabilities, intuitive query and report functions, and decent ability to import and export data."

FilemakerPro

Don't laugh! (here's a napkin for the coffee coming out of your nose)

FilemakerPro is very useful in this regard, and IMHO easier to use than Access, which is nothing less than MSSQL wannabelite.

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[petermgreen]

I would love to see a single-user desktop database program with modest relational capabilities, intuitive query and report functions, and decent ability to import and export data.
In what way does access not meet theese requirements?

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[nbvb]

Bento.

From the folks who brought you FileMaker.

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[pamar]

Just out of curiosity, during the "DOS days", did you ever try Framework? If yes, what do you think of it?

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>In what way does access not meet theese requirements?

It really does meet them. I just sometimes have the feeling that I'm using an elephant gun to swat a fly. The only thing that ever really gives me problems has to do with the multi-user features of Access. Every once in a while, some special magic will result in a file thinking it is set up for replication when it is not. On the other hand, when I have set up replication on purpose, it works pretty well.

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Just out of curiosity, during the "DOS days", did you ever try Framework? If yes, what do you think of it? I'd forgotten about that. I didn't ever use it, although I knew folks who did. They generally liked it. Seemed like Ashton-Tate was pushing the hell out of dBase in those days. I never did get an "evaluation copy" of Framework to try out as I did with dBase. Some of those old programs were too god-awful expensive to just go buy to see if you liked it.

Re:Spreadsheet/Database

[tbuskey]

The original marketing of Lotus 123 stressed its use as a database. 123 stood for 1=spreadsheet, 2=database. and 3=word processor. Excel still has 13 choices on its |Data menu. Lotus was a bloody awful word processor. Copy Con was better.

It sure was an awful WP. Because the 3rd app was graphics. 1 Spreadsheet, 2 Graphing, 3 Database.

There were 3rd party extensions that did WP. Lotus 123 v1 and v2 did not even do bold/italic/regular font changes.

SQLite Gui_

[xtracto]

Yup, I think SQLite is a great alternative against Access, however could someone suggest a good GUI for SQLite with similar properties as MS Access? I am not looking for a clone but a program in which my mom could make her simple databases without knowing SQL programming language. Access allows her to do that, but if I want to migrate to Linux there is no alternative. I know that the guys at KDE have some nice apps in developemnt, but I am looking for an application in the lines of "mature" sourceforge status.

Re:SQLite Gui_

[misleb]

Question: Does your mom effectively use MS Access now?

I would question whether it is even possible to make a GUI for any database that a) is easy to use, b) provides enough options to make a wide variety of applications, and c) requires no knowledge of SQL or database design. This is one of those "pick two" situations. Even Access requires a fair amount of skill to use properly... far more than Word or Excel. And even with a modicum of skill, databases produced in MS Access tend to be horrible abominations. What could a SQLite GUI do better?

-matthew

Re:SQLite Gui_

[xtracto]

Question: Does your mom effectively use MS Access now?

The answer is Yes. But of course the answer depends on what you mean by "effectively". My mom uses access effectively for her needs. She can start a database with one of the wizards and then modify it a bit using the GUI. She has a *very very* small knowledge of keys and tables and overal database structure (which I taught her). Overall, she knows whatever is necessary to know to acomplish her tasks.

The idea of a GUI is to make it easy and intuitive to execute certain tasks. Access does that quite well, even if the .MDB file format is not very good, it is good enough (something for what Microsoft is characterized). However there is no other GUI good enough for users such as my mom (unless you count Excel)

Re:SQLite Gui_

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious: can't MS Access be used as a front-end for SQLite?

I know it can be used as a front end for SQL Server, and MySQL (sort of, when I last tried it, but that was a few years ago). It should work, in theory at least, with whatever ODBC compatible data store you point it at.

I've never used SQLite, so I don't know if it comes with a working ODBC interface. Google says it does, but I don't know how good/compatible it is, and I've always had the impression that Access is ehm, "a bit" picky.

And why not just use MySQL? The last time I used it, it was far less demanding on resources as MSDE, and that one was meant as an alternative to SQL Server for small apps (as a successor to the Jet engine, which used to be Access' default store).

Disclaimer: if I said something that hasn't been true since Access '97, that's because it's been that long since I've used Access. Personally I hate it, but I can imagine some people have a different opinion.

Re:SQLite Gui_

[Abcd1234]

And why not just use MySQL?

1. Completely free for embedding (the embedded version of MySQL has license fees, AFAIK).
2. Easier to move databases between machines (they're endian-neutral, monolithic files).
3. Supports more of SQL92.
4. Far lighter in terms of resource consumption.

I'm sure there's plenty of other reasons, but for a certain subset of problem domains, SQLite is an *excellent* solution, IMHO.

'course, that's not to say it's perfect. It has a quirky typing system, and it's locking is extremely rudimentary. But for your average Access user, it's probably more than sufficient as a data storage engine.

Re:SQLite Gui_

[datadigger]

Actually, MS Access is too good for Microsoft to develop, so they bought it. I agree it's one of the best GUI / GUI builders for databases (of what I've seen). The only real trouble is when it is abused by putting the .MDB on a network share and expect it to work fine with loads of users opening it concurrently. But with the application on the client and some other database than the native Access database (jet) it performs quite well indeed.
[Note to self: try Access / SQLite ODBC driver / SQLite]

Re:SQLite Gui_

[GaryPatterson]

Well, you didn't specify current platform so...

http://www.filemaker.com/products/bento/overview.html

It looks pretty nice, very simple but OS X 10.5 only. Migrating to Linux is out though, as is Windows. Hmm...

Re:SQLite Gui_

[Anonymous Coward]

Question: Does your mom effectively use MS Access now?

No, my mom can't use *any* part of MS Office "effectively". The whole thing is a monster. Heck, *I* can barely use parts of MS Office.

But my mom can use a Mac. I doubt she's used this yet, but Bento looks like something she could handle.

I would question whether it is even possible to make a GUI for any database that a) is easy to use, b) provides enough options to make a wide variety of applications, and c) requires no knowledge of SQL or database design. This is one of those "pick two" situations.

I used to think this way, too. When I saw a popular product that failed miserably at something, I figured it must be a pick-2 situation. Usually, though, it turns out that somebody actually has figured out how to do it right, and the Microsoft implementation is just really lousy.

Re:SQLite Gui_

[vandan]

Yup, I think SQLite is a great alternative against Access, however could someone suggest a good GUI for SQLite with similar properties as MS Access?

I'm working on it: http://entropy.homelinux.org/axis. Click on the 'future' link for some previews of the GUI. It's not exactly aimed at your mom. It's aimed at MS Access developers who want something better.

Re:Managers have an Oracle bias even in small shop

[Shados]

Well, for small companies and smaller applications, Oracle can also be obtained for free... And while you may not need the features at first (uncommon...standard date handling anyone? was that fixed yet?), when you actually do, its a heck of a lot easier to just "use them" than to have to switch to a more complete system.

If MySQL is enough for your application, you shouldn't even be using Java in the first place. That being said, does MySQL even have a -full- implementation of the latest JDBC specs? If no, (and I'm talking -full- implementation, not partial like it has for ADO.NET, unless you shell out for third party), then its a show stopper right there.

Doen't Sun call everything "Java" ?

[walterbyrd]

Sun calls Linux "Java." Sun's own ticker symbol is "JAVA." If sun changes the name of MySQL, I think the new name would have to be "Java."

It's like that SouthPark episode with "Moldor."

Re:Doen't Sun call everything "Java" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun calls Linux "Java." Sun's own ticker symbol is "JAVA." If sun changes the name of MySQL, I think the new name would have to be "Java."

So instead of LAMP, Sun would like us to say JAJP from now on?
Doesn't sound.

Re:Doen't Sun call everything "Java" ?

[morgan_greywolf]

So instead of LAMP, Sun would like us to say JAJP from now on?
Doesn't sound. No, it just means that Sun's next big aquisition is likely to be Zend, followed by the Apache Foundation.

Then we'll just call it 'Java'.

Re:Managers have an Oracle bias even in small shop

[Shados]

To answer my own question, from the look of it, the status is the same as in .NET: the first party drivers are incomplete, so you need third party ones... At least there are a lot of choices I guess.

Normalization has practical limitations

[zooblethorpe]

The practical reason is that this turns out to be a quite useful behavior. Suppose s represents a social security number on a person record. In some cases that person has declined to provide is SSN, in which case we must put a null in that column. So two or more people can provide null for their social security number, thus many rows can have null there; but if two people provide the SAME SSN, that's an error.

Or you could normalize the data. If you're expecting missing SSN's from multiple people, a separate SSN table would be required. This table would contain two columns - PersonID and SSN. A person without a SSN listed would not be included in the table, thus solving the multi-null problem.

Sure, but excessive normalization can also be a pain in the arse. Theoretically speaking, complete normalization throughout would obviate any need for NULL. Practically speaking, this is unreasonable, given the resulting complexity and increased time required for queries and other operations -- which is why databases still use NULL. As the GP noted, allowing NULL values "turns out to be a quite useful behavior."

Cheers,

Re:Normalization has practical limitations

[NoOneInParticular]

Don't discount this approach as just theory just yet. Column databases, where each table consists of only a single key column and a value column, eliminate the need of NULL alltogether. These are not the best OLTP database, as updates are distributed over many tables, but they are very good in the OLAP space, and ad-hoc querying is competitive with traditional, row-based, databases. It's just a different set of trade-offs, but lack of NULL is a big bonus.

Re:Wouldn't it be cool

[cnettel]

I bet they would be nailed in an anti-trust case in Alliance courts.

New SUN tagline...

[Anonymous Coward]

"We are the S in LAMP !"

Re:New SUN tagline...

[jobst]

LAMPS?

Doesn't match my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I interviewed at Google when I was 40 years old. After two interviews I was hired. My first manager was Wayne Rosing. I believe he was 54 at the time. Later I worked for Bill Coughran; he's also in his 50s. Sure, the company skews young--isn't that true of most high tech? Look at the senior management group: Larry and Sergey are the youngest ones there. Lots of people in their 40s and 50s.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/execs.html#bill

imalittleteapot.....what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain why it's got that tag?

Don't forget!

[Gazzonyx]

...also, we have to leverage the synergy of the XML paradigm in [vague notion]!

Re:What you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

What??!! .. a cake full of tubes!!

Datacenter focus

[smilbandit]

I think that this will be used in Sun's datacenter solutions and datacenter in a box dreams. They have all the other key parts for it except they've been using other companies products for the data part of datacenter. Plus mysql is a company you can buy and control where with postgresql I don't think you can buy the global development group since it seems to be a collection of developers. I don't know enough about postgresql though so i could be mistaken. Seems like a pretty good business decision to me.

Oracle == MySQL

[brunes69]

Oracle bought the MySQL InnoDB engine a while ago, and if you are using MySQL for any kind of business or reliable system you are using the InnoDB engine. So if you're using MySQL you are likely already using Oracle, you just don't know it.

A good time to download the source

[sneakyimp]

MySQL doth rule. This is too bad. I hate Java to death. Or rather I hate it so much I wish it was dead. Unfortunately, that's currently my only hope of getting any apps onto a mobile device.

I really hope they don't screw it up. This might be a good time to download the latest build for storage.

But you can email a copy to coworkers

[wsanders]

If it gets messy at 100K likes, you can just email a copy to all your coworkers to collaborate in debugging.

Sheesh, doesn't EVERYONE do it this way?

Re:But you can email a copy to coworkers

[inKubus]

Too bad Excel only allows up to 65535 lines ;) However, you can have an unlimited number of worksheets up to available memory and resources. Unfortunately, the girls in accounting figured this out a few years ago...

Billing Xref.xls (1.86GB)

This is *good* news.

[Qbertino]

The truth is:
Sun can't possibly screw around more than MySQL AB has been doing ever since they went IPO. Just the other day I looked for MySQL Workbench - expecting it to be delayed yet another 2 years. Only to discover something worse: A beta is out and they've written in in DOt-f*cking-NET! Can you believe it? They've rewritten MySQLs core selling argument to many people in a prorpietary plattform that is owned by MS. MySQLs core design tool only runs on MS 2k SP4 and above! Unbelievable.
Suns marketing is just as shoddy as that of MySQL, so that's a perfect fit. But I sure do hope Sun will bring back some technical oper-source superiority to MySQL, which it once shared with many mature OSS projects.

Re:This is *good* news.

[PCM2]

Sun can't possibly screw around more than MySQL AB has been doing ever since they went IPO.

Uhh... MySQL AB never actually went IPO. It was reportedly planning one, but it got bought by Sun instead.

What is Sun up to?

[walterbyrd]

Web-hosting of sorts, would be my quess. I don't mean hosting like dreamhost. I mean more along the lines of utility computing. Sun won't just sell web-space, sun will work closely with it's clients.

Sun has been going open source lately. To make money in F/OSS you sell services, not products. Sun has also announced that sun will be outsourcing their data centers. I think Sun means to expand their data centers a lot, and wants to save money.

A lot of major companies already contract with Sun to run database apps on Sun servers. Those servers are located in Sun's buildings. Sun then contracts with EDS to do the hands-on administration of servers. EDS often contracts with other companies, including a lot of off-shore companies. The datacenters do not have to be offshore, just the people who monitor the systems, and do all the admin work that does not have to be hands-on.

I think Sun may be targeting smaller company, not just banks and the like.

So let's say I want to start a SaaS company to offer hotel management software. Since I don't have a lot money, and I don't want to pay for a lot of computer resources, to get started, I decide to use PHP and MySQL to develop my product. Since this is a commercial offering, I will need to have a commercial version of MySQL, this is where Sun will have me covered. Sun itself will do very little, Sun will contract with other companies to provide back-end support. Sun will hold the licenses to the OS, and the database, and maybe the language - if you decide to use Java. Sun will be the middle-man, the deal maker. Sun will change it's focus from selling hw/sw, to contracting for sevices, and those services will be provided by others.

Or something along those lines, is what I'm guessing.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[zrq]

Sun don't own Derby. It used to be owned by IBM, and they gave it to the Apache foundation to look after.

From the Apache Derby website :

The initial code base from which to create this project is from the commercial product called IBM Cloudscape. The history of this product is that it was developed at Cloudscape Inc. starting in 1996. The Cloudscape product was purchased along with the Cloudscape company by Informix Software in 1999. In 2001, IBM purchased the database assets of Informix Software, including the Cloudscape product.

IBM plans to contribute the Derby code base, test cases, build files, and documentation to the ASF under the terms specified in the ASF Corporate Contributor License. Once at Apache, the project will be licensed under the ASF license.

Re:Does anyone know why is my karma rated as terri

[Anonymous Coward]

What the h*ll is going on with the modders? Why are you modding down the people who criticize the FP troll? Mod them up. Comments simply complaining about trolls, flamers, off-topicers and redundant posters simply adds more noise to the already deafening sound of useless posts on Slashdot.

(Yes I am aware of the irony of doing the very thing I am criticizing but I will break my own rule just this once because this appears to be forgotten these days on Slashdot)

You've heard it said before I'm sure - IGNORE THE TROLLS! etc. etc.

Re:Rewrite in Java

[dens]

...and it comes with java 6 as javadb.

Training problem

[Tony]

First, because it will make easier for developers to put more application logic in the database.

This sounds like an education issue, not a tech issue. Teach developers that the database is for data coherence, the middle layer is for application logic, and the client is for data entry and user interaction. Using Java stored procedures for data management tasks is very useful.

Second, because a native compiled stored procedure (native, that is, to the DBMS) would be faster

True. I use plperl in PostgreSQL quite extensively, and although there is a performance difference between Perl and C stored procedures, the C procedures are much harder to develop and debug. There are some things I can do in just a few lines of Perl that would take ten times more work in C, and would be damned hard with plpgsql. If there's a lot of database interaction, the performance difference between C and Perl isn't that great.

It all comes down to a trade-off between maintainability, performance, and sanity, as in all programming.

Hopefully they fix the joins

[melted]

I've run a comparo between Postgres and MySQL on my (moderately complex) DB and MySQL sucked real bad on joins and didn't properly support subselects. Hopefully folks at Sun fix these issues. In the meanwhile, PostgreSQL beats the crap out of MySQL on anything non-trivial. PGSQL FTW!

Re:Hopefully they fix the joins

[dave87656]

MySQL sucked real bad on joins and didn't properly support subselects.

That has been my experience as well. For our production volume, MySQL doesn't work very well, especially with joins. And, it doesn't seem to matter if I'm using MyISAM or Innodb.

Google used MySQL for Adwords...

[Sits]

Certainly at some point in the past Google DID use for AdWords which suggests money might have been involved. What they are using now I do not know - you will need to find an appropriate current employee of Google to tell you.

Re:Wouldn't it be cool

[Jesus_666]

Thank you, but I prefer not bleeding from all orifices.

Bento is built on SQLite

[datadigger]

Looks very interesting... What kind of programmatic access does it provide? Can I send it a SQL query?

Yes, you can. Behind Bento is an SQLite database but the structure is, uhm, interesting. That's because it represents a Bento, of course.

I sure hope...

[EkriirkE]

...that they don't make start migrating it to Java technologies. I want a FAST database.

Re:I sure hope...

[einhverfr]

MySQL is FAST:

Free
And
Sorta
Transactional.

The MySQL development team has also traditionally been sorta ACID-resistant.

Being RIGHT is more importan than being fast.

Re:I sure hope...

[rdeleonp]

einhverfr (238914):
Being RIGHT is more importan than being fast.

Thank goodness PostgreSQL is both.

8.3 is just around the corner, so if anyone has still not checked it, please, do yourself a favor and read up on what's new, you'll be pleased.

• Release notes).
• Documentation.

Re:I sure hope...

[EkriirkE]

*Whoosh!*

To NULL or not to NULL

[datadigger]

Allow me to add a reference to The third manifesto (Hugh Darwen and C.J. Date). Interesting stuff.

Re:To NULL or not to NULL

[einhverfr]

The only thing I would add is that there are certain times when even the rules I have argued need to be broken.

Consider the following issue: Queued jobs.

Every queued job has an id, a time created, and a time finished. The time completed may be NULL if the job hasn;t completed yet because we don't know yet when the job will complete.

Ok, now suppose we want to track success or failure.
So we add a success code. true if success, false if failure.
when the job completes, we force the success code to be not null.

So now we have:
create table jobs (
id int primary key, -- contrived artificial data, no natural primary key
time_entered timestamp not null,
time_completed timestamp, -- default is null
success bool, -- default is null
CHECK ((time_completed IS NULL AND success IS NULL) OR (time_completed IS NOT NULL AND success IS NOT NULL))
);

Ok so now we want to add an error condition. On success, the data really doesn't exist, but on failure it does. The only way to actually constrain this data without using a trigger is to put it into the main table by adding the following lines:

error_condition text, --default is null
CHECK ((error_condition IS NULL AND success IS NOT FALSE) OR (error_condition IS NOT NULL AND success IS FALSE))

This complex set of "this value requires this other field, and the other field may not exist when the value does not exist" requires very complex dances to get around when it comes to avoiding NULLs. Unfortunately the current RDBMS's are not designed to handle these situations well because (IMHO) Codd made a minor and forgivable error in giving NULLs an ambiguous meaning.

Re:To NULL or not to NULL

[jadavis]

The only thing I would add is that there are certain times when even the rules I have argued need to be broken.

As long as you understand the costs of breaking the rules, in addition to the benefits you see.

The time completed may be NULL if the job hasn;t completed yet because we don't know yet when the job will complete.

You are describing a possible representation of the information that you'd like to store. Just because you can store information in a given manner, doesn't mean that it's good. Inapplicable fields are a sign of bad design.

So the question is, what do you give up? You have mixed your predicates. That means that you can no longer make inferences set-at-a-time, and so you can no longer reason at the level of sets. So what do you intend to do? Does each tuple have its own predicate? How many predicates does a table that contains NULLs have? How complex are those predicates?

Unfortunately the current RDBMS's are not designed to handle these situations well because (IMHO) Codd made a minor and forgivable error in giving NULLs an ambiguous meaning.

In my opinion the error was not minor, and NULLs are worse than ambiguous. NULLs are basically a way for the person inserting data to make up new predicates as they go -- the antithesis of a relational database.

It's gonna go CDDL & only be available on sola

[Anonymous Coward]

It's gonna go CDDL & only be available on solaris! hehe

Falcon

[kbahey]

Very true.

This is why MySQL AB turned around and bought solidDB, and started writing Falcon in-house, a new transactional engine.

No re-licensing

[kbahey]

That is totally possible, but it misses the point.

Both MySQL and InnoDB were dual licensed. They have a GPL version, and a proprietary version. The non-GPL version can be licensed to customers who want to redistribute their application/solution without all of it being GPL.

Their agreement with InnoBase allowed them to do that.

Now that Oracle owns InnoBase, the licensing of the non-GPL version is in question. Will Oracle pull the plug at some point? Will they kill MySQL's revenue stream by doing that? Who knows.

So, while the GPL version is out there, the revenue from relicensing InnoDB is not, and hence the dilemma.

MySQL AB started writing a new engine called Falcon ...

MYSQL Sucks!

[Organic Brain Damage]

Who cares if Sun buys it. Now they have a crappy database to go with their crappy language, substandard O/S, useless office suite and overpriced hardware. It's almost a complete set....of junk.

Re:MYSQL Sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sub-standard OS? Can you elaborate on that please. Think about some of the things Sun delivered in Solaris 10. Zones, Dtrace, rewritten TCP/IP stack (40% quicker in some cases), better memory management. I'm not wild about the package management system and in my experience the support that Sun provide can be pretty poor, but overall I think its an excellent OS. In what respect do you think your preferred OS is better?

Re:Does anyone know why is my karma rated as terri

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean, "Don't feed the trolls."

My thoughts

[einhverfr]

1) MySQL is a lot worse than SQLite for a lot of things.
2) Mybe Sun can make MySQL into something not as sucky as it is today?

Postgres wins?

[AutumnLeaf]

Maybe I'm cynical, but I don't see mysql improving as a result of this.

non-relational information?

[einhverfr]

You mean like XML? Does MySQL have native xpath capabilities now?

Or do you mean something else?

In general I have generally found that relational storage of *all* information is generally preferred...

If you use a Mac try Bento.

[falconwolf]

Not having heard of Bento I Googled it and see it requires Leopard.

Falcon

Have you singled out the exception?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem, from an IT department standpoint, is that such "lists" always seem to grow in their requirements. Always?. Really? Sure, many a simple spreadsheet grows beyond initial expections into something that could/should have been a database app from the start. However, what about all of the other little dinkum lists that do not grow into anything much, and eventually just fizzle? Should all of those be database apps too, just in case?

I think you are predicting the past, rather than understanding the future.

shocked

[Yao Peter]

Shouldn't it be MySQL to acquire Sun?

Re:THE NEW COMMENTS SYSTEM!

[Hucko]

Well, I want more than fifty posts at a time! You are lucky if 1 in fifty are worth reading... grrr... of course, now this post is counted as the kind of noise in signal people don't want.... sheesh....

screw google. hard to find a more evil company

[falconwolf]

these day

These days Google is a multibillion dollar multinational corporation not a private research project. While founders of corporations may have and try to keep a sense of what's right and wrong once a corporation has it's IOP it has stockholders it has to report to.

Falcon

127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net

[tepples]

Beware, they recently added a feature that guerrilla-spams you with ThinkGeek ads. Ugh. All I get is "Click here to find out more!". But then I've configured my computer not to look up host names known to have served me SWF documents that do not allow me to stop them, and I've configured my web browser to display SWF documents only after I have clicked them.

Re:127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net

[coolGuyZak]

I try to leave ads in place, because everyone is making a living here, advertisers included. (Sometimes ads are worth looking at, as well). This, however, may push me over the edge... It's obnoxious.

Hully JEE

[tepples]

Sun calls Linux "Java." Sun's own ticker symbol is "JAVA." If sun changes the name of MySQL, I think the new name would have to be "Java." So instead of LAMP, Sun would like us to say JAJP from now on?
Doesn't sound. Sun would like us to say JAJJ stack (Java distribution of GNU/Linux OS, Apache Tomcat container, Java database, Java programming language), or perhaps just JEE stack (Java Enterprise Edition).

SUn supporting OS DB

[falconwolf]

Sun has been thinking about this for a while
http://www.news.com/2100-7344_3-5562799.html

Thing is is Sun already supports an OS DB:
"Sun backs open-source database PostgreSQL".

Falcon

Not the Problem

[Bilbo]

> One can only hope that they will be using this to replace the database that comes in Open Office.

Actually, it's not the database itself that sucks in OOo "Base", it's the interface. I use the OpenOffice Base program to connect to a REAL database (PostgreSQL), and it still sucks. The reporting tool is goofy beyond imagination, and it either crashes, or just plain loses track of the database on a regular basis. Don't EVER try to define a table through the Base interface -- you can't really modify anything in the table or column definitions. Well, you can try, but they don't work. You can neither import or export data in any form whatsoever (huh???), and you can't cut-n-paste anything into a spreadsheet except as an entire table or view. The forms editor is completely useless. The built in database isn't intended for any kind of large data storage, but that's not the real problem. It's just that you can't really DO anything interesting with the data.

Suffice it to say the OpenOffice.org Base application is just plain immature. OO Writer is great; OO Draw is beyond anything MS Office has; OO Base is a really poor substitute for Access, and OO Impress is... well... not very impressive. Give them time and they will eventually become something useful. The database program definitely has the longest way to go though.

Yes, but....

[einhverfr]

There is one issue here.

Suppose we are collecting information. We want to collect information as to a primary place of residence for individuals on a survey but they are allowed to decline to provide that information. When they provide the information, we populate the address tables (normalizing addresses is a *real* pain) and provide a link to the address in the individual table in the primary_residence field.

When primary_residence is NULL we *know* that this means that it is unknown. Our data model expects that for *every* respondant, there is *exactly* one primary residence. Hence enforcing this functional dependency makes a great deal of sense in any normal form.

In a similar case, suppose we store expiration dates for tax rates. NULL means "no plans to change the rate yet" in other words "will probably change at some unknown time in the future." NULL is probably more semantically correct than an infinity timestamp or other fun kludges.

In short, I see nothing in BCNF, 4NF, or 5NF definitions which excludes NULLs used in this manner (i.e. information which is presumed to exist but is unknown at the moment). If the information exists, even if it is not known, the database can and should be designed to assume that it does exist.

The other issue however is that sometimes NULL is use to represent data which does not exist.

For example, consider:
create table employee (
person_id int primary key references person(id),
hourly_wage numeric,
monthy_salary numeric
CHECK hourly_wage is not null OR monthly_salary is not null,
CHECK hourly_wage is null OR monthly_salary is null
);

In this case, we know that either hourly_wage or monthly_salary will be null for every row but not both.

    This is dangerous for a number of reasons:

1) Yes, it breaks 3NF because NULLs representing "information does not apply" suggest that there is no functional dependency on that record. In the above example, it would be better redesign the db to avoid those NULLs.
2) It introduces semantic ambiguity into the relational model because elsewhere NULL may be used to mean "UNKNOWN."

Hope that helps.

Re:Yes, but....

[hey!]

When primary_residence is NULL we *know* that this means that it is unknown.

Do we?

I heard on NPR an interview with a jazz musician who literally lives on permanent tour. He just has his suitcase, his instrument, and spare instrument stored at his agent's office. In this case primary residence being NULL would mean "doesn't apply".

Null is one of the squirreliest concepts in database theory, because there should probably be many flavors of null. Without that, a relational database has no way (other than adopting conventional values which, if you think about it, amount to ad hoc nulls) of distinguishing between questions like "does not exist" and "is unknown at this time", things that are possible to know but not represent.

This kind of null based conceptual weakness creates bugs, especially in aggregate or exists queries. For example suppose our table has 10 people, including our musician. In current systems, any way of counting the number of people whose primary residence is known would result in a kind of conservations principle: known + unknown must equal 10. However, the musician's primary residence is clearly not unknown, but it isn't clear that his primary residence "is known", because depending on what you want to do, "is known" might mean "we don't need to look for one" or it might mean "we can produce one". Where these problems come up in practice, designers patch them up by ad hoc measures, but it a database theory might well be expected to address these issues.

Re:Yes, but....

[cyclomedia]

I'm working on a project where the ambguity had to be written out from the start, it now has three "null" values meaning:

  - NO VALUE ASSIGNED (YET)
  - ASSIGNED AS UNKNOWN
  - ASSIGNED AS NOT APPLICABLE

Now, one may argue that the latter could be normalised out but in the instance of this specific app i created const values to represent these and built queries to exclude them. For example numerics are forced to only be within +/- 2billion to 8dp . And 2000000001 equals "NO VALUE ASSIGNED". NULLs are not allowed in the numeric columns within the DB.

Fortunately this is all clearly laid out within the project documentation for future developers to stumble across but it's hardly perfect.

Re:Yes, but....

[einhverfr]

That Jazz musician probably has a drivers license with a primary residence listed on it. At least this provides a location to begin attempting to contact the person. So yes, it exists.

Re:Yes, but....

[einhverfr]

And you had better hope that the requirements don't change so that suddenly your magic values have normal meanings ;-)

Re:Yes, but....

[DragonWriter]

Null is one of the squirreliest concepts in database theory, because there should probably be many flavors of null.

Or none. You can sensibly approach the problem either way (though many NULLs, I think, ultimately leads to madness.)

Having one NULL, OTOH, is just plain broken, but you can often enough work around it by just trying to limit the use in any one table to one interpretation, and limiting the ways application code depends on interpretation when you can't be certain what any given NULL means. Meanwhile, many NULLs raises the question of how you manage the use of all those NULLs, and no NULLs means more joins, which are attractive from a theoretical perspective, but can be a performance hit.

Re:Yes, but....

[hey!]

I'd think it would be impossible to maintain closure on relational operations if tuples could not have null. Or rather it would be all to easy to do it in a way that made the theory sound, but useless.

Re:Yes, but....

[DragonWriter]

I'd think it would be impossible to maintain closure on relational operations if tuples could not have null. Or rather it would be all to easy to do it in a way that made the theory sound, but useless.

Would you care to elaborate? As far as I can tell, closure on the relational operators is established pretty solidly, and doesn't depend on the weird, not-like-a-normal-value behavior of NULL, and NULL adds nothing to the utility of relational algebra, it simply makes it easier to to implement "relational" databases with fewer tables.

Don't judge a book by its cover

[einhverfr]

Basically, you would be close to arguing that every program written in Visual C++ is a derivative work of Windows.

My own thinking (IANAL) is that linking *never* has anything to do with derivation. Here is why:

When a program is run through a linker along with relavent libraries, one of two things happens depending on whether static or dynamic linking is requested:

1) Either the requested libraries are loaded into memory into separate contiguous address spaces along with the original application (they share the same protected memory segment, however) or
2) The requested libraries are stripped down (non-creative process, purely functional), and packaged in the same file, but separate sections.

In both cases, what you get looks a lot like a book with a single cover. Looking at the cover, you might suspect that there is only a single copyright owner. And indeed there is. However, in this case there are separate, distinct portions within it of different authorship, which suggests that this is a compiled or collected rather than derivative work.

In a similar case, suppose I write a paper on element formation in stars. I cite important papers on the subject including the Caughlin, Fowler, Zimmerman paper and include references to specific paragraphs, suggesting that if the other work is handy to the reader, they can JMP over to that other paragraph and read it for more information. Just because I say something like "See page 3, second paragraph" doesn't make my work derivative of the other. My map is not one of non-literal copyrighted elements (as might be arguably the case in a book like "The Wind Done Gone."

Ok, so suppose instead of being published in a journal, the paper is instead published in an astrophysics anthology along with several of the papers I cite. Again, one book with one cover. And infact the publisher probably owns the copyrights for the ordering and arrangement. But again, that is not a derivative work.

The real question is whether "based on" in the GPL has the same meaning as it does in the Copyright Act (where it is *clearly* defined in such a way that linking would not qualify) and whether "aggregation" means the same thing as preparing a collected or compiled work. If that is the case, then the GPL does not control linking and you can create a wonderful proprietary application that .

Note, however, that a lot of other issues could create derivative works in software. For example, reusing graphical design aspects, or allowing other non-literal creative elements of a program to creap into the new work would imply derivation.

Again IANAL, but this is my $0.02

Blackhole tables

[einhverfr]

The great invention of MySQL-- the ONLY database to have Write-Only-Tables.....

DBs

[falconwolf]

Sorry, having dealt with both MySQL and PostgreSQL for some time, I think MySQL is far more difficult to deploy in a "professional" setting.

Have you also used Firebird? Though I don't use a DB now I want to install one and learn to use it, I took a DB design class several years ago but haven't done anything with DBs since. So I don't the differences between different DB/DBMSs. I hope to start a photography business soon and will want a DB for it.

Falcon

Re:DBs

[mlwmohawk]

Cool! I'm a photog as well. In fact, back in the '70s (high school) I had my own darkroom. Its funny, I find software developers tend to be "artistic," but it seems to be split between photographers and musicians. Well, dave cutler likes to draw too. Who knows.

Anyway, take a look at PostgreSQL. That's my advice. Also, there are a lot of frameworks out there to put u a photo web site. Oh! checkout deviantart.com

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Netcraft confirms it...

[Anonymous Coward]

... MySQL is dying.

postgresql

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be a lot more popular if its name didn't suck. Marketing can be as important as the quality of the product, and how do you get brand name recognition with a word you can't pronounce?

What happens to Derby?

[BAlkyMAn]

I know Sun provided a lot of support to Apache Derby. Does anyone have any insight on what this buyout means for Derby? Is Derby going to be kicked to the curb?

There's hope...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it wasn't purchased by Google!

How do you know mySQL will go bad?

[falconwolf]

Well, two reasons.

1. I don't think that (other than Servers) Sun produces any decent products.
2. Look what Novell did to Ximian, Suse and (by association) Gnome.

These are personal views mind you, so feel free to disagree.

I don't know what to think. Perhaps it will come to nothing, or maybe it will result in Sun going in a new direction which will proof to be beneficial for Sun.

Falcon

Photography

[falconwolf]

Cool! I'm a photog as well. In fact, back in the '70s (high school) I had my own darkroom.

Though I didn't have my own darkroom in the '70s I took a photography class in high school and used the darkroom there. Then when I was in the army I used a darkroom in the arts and crafts center on base. Because I knew photography my Commanding Officer made me my unit's photographer.

Its funny, I find software developers tend to be "artistic," but it seems to be split between photographers and musicians

While I enjoyed photography in high school, I was torn between majoring in a marine science and Computer Engineering. I took marine biology as well as programming and data processing classes in high school. Only if I knew then what I know now, instead of choosing one over the other I would have taken a double major, CE and marine science.

Anyway, take a look at PostgreSQL. That's my advice. Also, there are a lot of frameworks out there to put u a photo web site. Oh!

I plan to, I plan on trying Firebird, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Well comparing them at least. I don't know if it's possible but I'll look to see if it's possible to install all three on my MacBook Pro. If not I'll just install one of them and install another db on my Linux PC.

Falcon

A perfect match for SUN

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, way to go for SUN. I mean ^H^H^H^H JAVA.

A perfect match.

A toy programming language, with it's own toy database server.

Perfect for students and other first time programmers who can't afford the real tools, or can't be bothered to learn how things actually work.

SUN [I mean JAVA] wanted to reflect on their 'core competencies' , ie: toys.

Like toll booth attendants?

[tepples]

I try to leave ads in place, because everyone is making a living here I too leave ads in place, except ads that use Adobe proprietary technology and ads from those hostnames that happen to have previously served me especially obnoxious ads. The ThinkGeek ads happen to fall into the latter category because they are hosted by DoubleClick.

advertisers included. Here I disagree. Paying advertisers just because they are there reeks of a situation where the government of some U.S. state was making just barely enough from toll roads to pay the attendants. The state was considering closing the toll booths, but then the attendants would be out of a job. I can't find specifics on Google, but I think it might have been New York.

mod parent up

[jcoleman]

Without governance your IT department is screwed. IT is a service and must be treated as such - just like calling a lawyer.

Re:Does anyone know why is my karma rated as terri

[sco08y]

Comments simply complaining about trolls, flamers, off-topicers and redundant posters simply adds more noise to the already deafening sound of useless posts on Slashdot.

The reason for that is that the responses to FP trolls are almost invariably deliberate trolls themselves.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually expected your boss to click on links in an email to install software in order to read stuff you send him?

You trying to be first in the next round of layoffs?

You're like one of those bright sparks who do their homework/assignments in invisible ink. "But I did my homework and handed it up on time! As per attached instructions - stick it in the oven at X degrees for 10 minutes and you can read it easily". Right, don't expect a good grade for doing that.

I believe most companies have a standard suite of desktop application software. Unless you have a very very complicated chart, putting a gantt chart in a form which can be displayed by one of those apps should be possible, and not involve very much time.

In some companies people (including bosses) aren't supposed to install unauthorized software onto their computers, in those companies people would have to breach policy to do what you requested your boss to do.