Evolution Happens!
Back in 1998 one of the reasons my boss back then used for not doing something on a Linux box was
"We don't have enough people with the skills to support that"
Fast forward 10 years and the opposite is happening,
I had a chat with a coworker the other day and we were wondering how we ended up having a windows box from a 3rd party vendor in our platform since no one in our organization knows how to support it.
I imagine similar conversations in MySQL environments where people wonder who is going to support that one proprietary database that came a long with an oldskool vendor
Evolution and Adoption is happening, change happens !!
Comments
#1 TimothyP : Re: MySQL
"I think you need to be a bit more clear on this. the big majority of people that are using MySQL have no need to link into it , they just use the database , they aren't shipping MySQL with any product they deliver."
True, but check the license of the connectors used to access MySQL databases from PHP or ASP.NET for example.
Basically it means every ASP.NET application which uses MySQL has to be released under the GPL. (The licenses
for these connectors used to be LGPL, now they are GPL). If you use MS SQL 2005 Express which has more features than MySQL and which is very stable you are not forced to release your software under a specific language.
The people at MySQL AB are aware of this, but told me they can't revert back to the LGPL license because
of commercial reasons. The developers at MySQL AB have been pusing to get it back to LGPL from day one.
(Very similar to the situation at Microsoft.... there are two camps there as well).
So if you really do need an SQL Server, you're better of with something other than MySQL unless you don't
mind releasing your entire application under the GPL license (which isn't always an option) or you apply for
affiliation with MySQL AB, which they have told me is free of charge.
If you're just using MySQL to power your blog, you might as well use SQLite.
I mean think about it, take a look at the MySQL databases out there.
90% of them are ill-designed by people who don't even know database design 101
(Heck, even Drupal uses a terrible naming scheme...)
And at least 80% of them don't implement stored procedures, relations, views, triggers etc...
The first reason is that everybody who takes a 2 week crash course for Access thinks he's a database designer,
the second reason is that MySQL (the most widely used database engine in the free world) didn't even support
relations views and stored procedures until a few years ago.
So most of these database can easily be replaced by SQLite which has all the features used by most scriptkiddies.
I'm not saying MySQL isn't a powerful database engine, I'm just saying, given the license of the connectors
and the way people abuse the system, they might as well stick with something else, something cheaper or more "free".
#2 TimothyP : MySQL
MySQL's licence scheme is dubious at best. And it's certainly not the cheapest solution unless you license your software
under the GPL.
I've had a discussion about this with the MySQL developers and they agreed with my point of view for most part.
The discussion was about the fact that they changed the licenses of their connectors from LGPL to GPL.
To me it felt like being hit in the face when they changed it, especially since I put some early work in it even before
the sources where bought by MySQL AB. Anyway....
In the end I was told that they will hand out full commercial licenses for free to any company who becomes an affiliate in their program. Which is I really nice I guess.
But comparing MySQL to "that other database system" isn't really a comparison for so many reasons.
And in some cases, "that other database system" will cost you less than MySQL. (Even the commercial people
behind MySQL AB agree here, stating they to have to make money... which I can understand of course).
There's more.
Since you don't seem to care about the limitations imposed by MySQL, why not use SQLite which is 100% free in every way (public domain). Most sites don't even need a full scale SQL server and would do just fine with SQLite.
#3 Kris Buytaert : Lost You
Timothy ,
I think you need to be a bit more clear on this. the big majority of people that are using MySQL have no need to link into it , they just use the database , they aren't shipping MySQL with any product they deliver.
MySQL license scheme used to be dubious 3-5 years ago. You could even accuse them of spreading fud back in the days, so you would indeed be lining towards buying a commercial license.
#4 Serge van Ginderachter : It's all a matter of perspective.
Obviously, back then, you were in an environment which didn't adopt Linux, yet, whilst now obviously you are.
Right now I'm scratching my head to find people who can support both. I need backup for a major customer.
Reality is, everybody just plays jedi or darth. Result is, we don't find people to support those Linux and BSD boxes.
No, employing different people for Windows and Linux is not a viable option, as systems interoperate over there. Employing different people brings up costs.