Re: Bad news for Open Source databases, acording to survey - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 10:57:16AM -0400, a little birdie told me
that Bruce Momjian remarked
> > On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 12:48:17AM -0400, some SMTP stream spewed forth:
> > > Here is an article saying open source databases will not make major
> > > inroads into large businesses during the next five years:
> > >
> > >   http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/datbus/article/0,,11969_796851,00.html
> >
> > What do you think this means for PostgreSQL in the large business arena?
>
> Not sure what it means or whether it is accurate.

It looks like, to put it kindly, a load of malarky to me.
While I'm not sure if the final conclusion is entirely inaccurate (though
I doubt things are as cut-and-dried as it makes it appear), the arguments
presented in the article are absurd.

I'm especially fascinated by how operating systems are simple, basic,
and easy to switch between, while DBMSen are so much more complicated.

And what about this paragraph set?
---
    Support by leading vendors for Linux is understandable because
    Microsoft controls the low-end OS market, and all the previously
    mentioned vendors would love to mitigate their dependence on
    Windows.  Indeed, Microsoft's success is forcing vendors that
    already sell a Unix OS (e.g., IBM and HP) to embrace Linux and
    thwart Microsoft's pull-through growth (e.g., SQL Server and
    .Net).

    The database market is quite different. The importance and
    complexity of the database platform is an opportunity to lock in
    customers to a particular vendor's platform. With major DBMS
    vendors striving to closely integrate their respective application
    servers (mainly Oracle and IBM) with their database engines, and
    hardware vendors and other major independent software vendors
    following the market share, it is unlikely that OSDB support will
    get a significant boost.
---
Right.  No company has ever tried to lock their customers into their OS.
Only database companies.

And the 'Bottom Line' summary:
---
    Bottom Line: Users' growing information databases are
    infrastructure assets that should use best-of-breed solutions to
    ensure availability and support.
---
Well, duh.  That's a platitude.  And it doesn't really relate to the rest
of the article, though it does get 10 Management Points for creative
sneaking in of marketspeak.  It's a statement with the presumption "OSDB's
aren't best-of-breed", but there's nothing at all in the article that
supports that view.  The closest they come is saying 'MySQL just recently
added two-phase commit and row-level locking', and seem to give the
attitude that's all that needs to be said.

Really, the whole article seems to be trying to say "There's lot of big
important companies in the DB business", and using that as basically the
sole axiom to prove "OSDB's aren't good enough and nobody will use them".

Possibly correct conclusion (though it's not exactly a binary question,
is it?), but totally meaningless justification, IMO.


--
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)     |    fullermd@over-yonder.net
Unix Systems Administrator      |    fullermd@futuresouth.com
Specializing in FreeBSD         |    http://www.over-yonder.net/

"The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
      haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"