Re: Comparing databases - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

* Paul Ganainm <paulsnewsgroups@hotmail.com> wrote:

<snip>
> > Yeah.  I've recommended it to a number of people who can't wait for our Win32
> > port.
>
> Yes - I can't wait for your Win32 port.
Do you really feel, you want this ?
Well, for the price of a win2k3 server license you can afford an own machine.

btw: yesterday I had a look at M$'s pricing.
Win2k3 (5usr) costs about 1kE and MSSQL(10usr) about 2k6E (w/o taxes),
mssql w/ unlimited users costs about 22kE. these prices are really heavy!

Is there anything on mssql which makes it worth such values, anything
which psql cannot ? (beside of some powerful business software vendors
like Sage, who refuse to support anything other than mssql, but did not
yet understand fundamental concepts of relational database design ...)

<snip>
> Could I (in theory - I only wish that I was that good!) take the MySQL
> code and add a few lines and call it PaulieSQL and release it under the
> GPL?
Well, if the original code *is* released under GPL (isnt it? - long time
it wasn't IIRC), I dont see anything which should forbid you to do so
(as long you respect all the terms of the GPL)

But the interesting point is, would such a forkoff be successful ?
Will there enough people working on that so let it the project survive ?

<snip>
> > Yah.  More should.  Do you know anybody who does Firebird web hosting?
Probably an old friend of mine: http://www.dbtech.de/
Some time ago he played around w/ interbase and felt quite happy w/ it
(well, he only knew mysql before ... ;-)).
But if I remember right, he wanted to migrate to psql a while ago ...

<snip>
> > Good.  Can you explain the Firebird license to me?  I want to know it in case
> > I have a project that calls for Firebird ....
>
> AFAIK, it's virtually identical to the GPL? You can use the database
hmm, then why not GPL ?
there's probably some important difference (just a feeling ...)

<snip>
> If you change the *_db_* code, you have to release that - again AFAIK,
> you never have to release code to your own app which uses the db as the
> back end.
Sounds like LGPL.

<snip>
> IIRC (and I may be *_completely_* wrong here - the fact that it was
> MPL'd by Borland originally, means that they can fold any contributed
> code back into their commerical product, but that nobody else can. At
> least AFAIK.
Sounds like netscape / QT license.
I'm not happy with this.

<snip>
> Yep - it's nifty - but there are cons - the stuff you write as UDF's
> (User Defined Functions) has to be fairly simple, cos it's outside
> transaction control.
How is this solved in psql ?
I've only written some simple string conversion function, nothing
more complex yet.

BTW: a really nice feature in psql are user defined operators
(coupled w/ opcache). It makes things like conversions quite easy and
performant.

Which other RDBMS also support that ?

<snip>
> > One of the big questions I get from companies is "how
> > do I know that the PostgreSQL Project will be around in 3 years?"   (my first
> > answer is, "How do you know that MSSQL server will be around in 3 years? MS
> > has killed projects before, and MSSQL is a money-loser ...")
>
>
> How do you know that MS SQL Server is a money loser?
hmm. did any customer already asked that ? ;-)


cu
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