Re: Humor me: Postgresql vs. MySql (esp. licensing) - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 16:28, John Wells wrote:
> Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
> the flamethrowers.
>
> I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
> regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.
>
> It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
> support, and the license involved.  A consultant my company hired before
> bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
> support, as well as ACID support.

Speed depends on the nature of use and the complexity of queries.  If
you are doing updates of related tables, ACID is of vital importance and
MySQL doesn't provide it.

> My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing.  We need to keep costs low,
> and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
> use" under the GPL.  If I recall, they even said a company would have to
> license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
> the company.

Unless they actually attach extra conditions to the GPL (i.e. "This
product is licensed under GPL with the following extra conditions...")
this is rubbish.  The GPL allows you to do what you like with the
software internally; its restrictions only apply to further
distribution.  MySQL would _like_ you to pay for support or buy a
commercial licence, but you only _need_ to buy a licence if you want to
distribute a modified or linked MySQL without distributing your own
source code.

If that position changes, we (Debian) will need to move MySQL from
Debian's main archive to its non-free section, or even drop it
altogether.  So do let me know if that becomes necessary!

> Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
> with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?

MySQL is very good for simple queries by not too many users at a time.
Otherwise it's no better than PostgreSQL and often worse to unusable,
according to other posts I've seen.

> Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
> this has changed?

Not that I know of.

> Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.

I took over maintenance of a project written in MySQL.  It is a total
nightmare.  No triggers, foreign keys or constraints, and bizarre
timestamp handling.  Given the choice, I wouldn't touch it with a ten
foot pole.

--
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK                             http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839  932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
                 ========================================
     "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
      God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
      tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
      is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
                                       James 1:13,14