Thread: PostgreSQL and Poker
a quite interesting read. http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/stranger-than-fiction-story-online-poker-tracker-postgresql especially as an explanation of the growing number of questions from Windows-Users of PostgreSQL And ... for a tag line: "PostgreSQL. Thousends bet on it." Harald -- GHUM Harald Massa persuadere et programmare Harald Armin Massa Spielberger Straße 49 70435 Stuttgart 0173/9409607 no fx, no carrier pigeon - LASIK good, steroids bad?
On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:39:16 +0200 "Massa, Harald Armin" <chef@ghum.de> wrote: > a quite interesting read. > > http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/stranger-than-fiction-story-online-poker-tracker-postgresql There are a couple of comments comment that maybe someone could correct: "The popularity of PostgreSQL as DBMS for handhistories is by no means just a matter of some alleged technological superiority over MySQL. Let's not forget that Pokertracker, Holdem Manager etc is proprietary software, so they really don't have any other choice but to bundle with postgreSQL. If they were to ship their products with MySQL, they would either have to open-source their products according to the GPL, or pay hefty commercial license fees." or "Bogdan's comment is right on the money. There are licensing issues with MySQL. MySQL commercial licenses are contracts with Sun. Not cheap. It had to be PostgreSQL." I understand the license differences (and for my taste I prefer GPL over BSD) but the above affirmations seems to imply pg couldn't stand up just on its technical merits. I don't think this is the case. Someone more knowledgeable about licenses and with a better English than mine should correct the comments. -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo<mail@webthatworks.it> wrote: > On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:39:16 +0200 > "Massa, Harald Armin" <chef@ghum.de> wrote: > >> a quite interesting read. >> >> http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/stranger-than-fiction-story-online-poker-tracker-postgresql > > There are a couple of comments comment that maybe someone could > correct: > > "The popularity of PostgreSQL as DBMS for handhistories is by no > means just a matter of some alleged technological superiority over > MySQL. Let's not forget that Pokertracker, Holdem Manager etc is > proprietary software, so they really don't have any other choice but > to bundle with postgreSQL. If they were to ship their products with > MySQL, they would either have to open-source their products > according to the GPL, or pay hefty commercial license fees." > > or > > "Bogdan's comment is right on the money. There are licensing issues > with MySQL. MySQL commercial licenses are contracts with Sun. Not > cheap. It had to be PostgreSQL." > > I understand the license differences (and for my taste I prefer GPL > over BSD) but the above affirmations seems to imply pg couldn't > stand up just on its technical merits. > > I don't think this is the case. Exactly, it could have been interbase / firebird, sqllite, berkelydb, and a couple other choices that are free. MySQL's licensing just took them out of the running right at the start. I'm not sure the comments need correction really, although the "alleged" bit kind of rubs me the wrong way, but you're not gonna convince a MySQL fanboi about anything anyway.
On Wed, 8 Jul 2009, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote: > Someone more knowledgeable about licenses and with a better English > than mine should correct the comments. Someone named Bogdan already commented adequately about the license stuff. I just debunked the idea that SQLite would be usable here. All this poker talk is bad, I've been staying away from the tables for a while now but fear this topic is going to pull me back again--just to see how the database apps have matured, of course. -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 13:22:14 -0600 Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Ivan Sergio > Borgonovo<mail@webthatworks.it> wrote: > > On Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:39:16 +0200 > > "Massa, Harald Armin" <chef@ghum.de> wrote: > > > >> a quite interesting read. > >> > >> http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/stranger-than-fiction-story-online-poker-tracker-postgresql > > > > There are a couple of comments comment that maybe someone could > > correct: > > > > "The popularity of PostgreSQL as DBMS for handhistories is by no > > means just a matter of some alleged technological superiority > > over MySQL. Let's not forget that Pokertracker, Holdem Manager > > etc is proprietary software, so they really don't have any other > > choice but to bundle with postgreSQL. If they were to ship their > > products with MySQL, they would either have to open-source their > > products according to the GPL, or pay hefty commercial license > > fees." > > > > or > > > > "Bogdan's comment is right on the money. There are licensing > > issues with MySQL. MySQL commercial licenses are contracts with > > Sun. Not cheap. It had to be PostgreSQL." > > > > I understand the license differences (and for my taste I prefer > > GPL over BSD) but the above affirmations seems to imply pg > > couldn't stand up just on its technical merits. > > > > I don't think this is the case. > Exactly, it could have been interbase / firebird, sqllite, > berkelydb, and a couple other choices that are free. MySQL's > licensing just took them out of the running right at the start. You can actually build up closed source software with MySQL as a server, it depends on how you do it. Aren't there any DB with LGPL library license? Still the above statement sounds too much as: pg wasn't chosen for it's technical merits but for the license. I don't think their only option was pg for licensing reasons. Or am I misunderstanding what you wrote? or... am I plainly wrong? -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it
On Wednesday 8. July 2009, Scott Marlowe wrote: >I'm not sure the comments need correction really, although the >"alleged" bit kind of rubs me the wrong way, but you're not gonna >convince a MySQL fanboi about anything anyway. A MySQL fanboi will take offense of the mere fact that anybody will actually prefer any other db engine over MySQL. And of course he will consider anybody preferring any other db engine as (insert name of any product here) fanbois. And that is of course "one of the reasons why Postgres is not accepted in the enterprise". I'm a little surprised that this particular MySQL fanboi actually managed to spell PostgreSQL correctly. -- Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009 Me And My Database: http://solumslekt.org/blog/
On Jul 8, 2009, at 1:20 PM, Greg Smith wrote: > On Wed, 8 Jul 2009, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote: > >> Someone more knowledgeable about licenses and with a better English >> than mine should correct the comments. > > Someone named Bogdan already commented adequately about the license > stuff. I just debunked the idea that SQLite would be usable here. > All this poker talk is bad, I've been staying away from the tables > for a while now but fear this topic is going to pull me back again-- > just to see how the database apps have matured, of course. I just LOL'd at a db guy trying to "stay away from the tables" :) Erik Jones, Database Administrator Engine Yard Support, Scalability, Reliability 866.518.9273 x 260 Location: US/Pacific IRC: mage2k
On Wed, 8 Jul 2009, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote: > You can actually build up closed source software with MySQL as a > server, it depends on how you do it. I seriously doubt that: http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/ The terms under which you can treat MySQL as a more open piece of software are pretty tightly constrained: http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/ -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Greg Smith<gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote: > On Wed, 8 Jul 2009, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote: > >> You can actually build up closed source software with MySQL as a >> server, it depends on how you do it. > > I seriously doubt that: http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/ > > The terms under which you can treat MySQL as a more open piece of software > are pretty tightly constrained: > http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/ Back in the day (v6.5.2) I picked pgsql because it had the features I needed, good enough performance, fair stability (as good or better than mysql's of the day) and that it didn't have mysql's restrictive licensing. Over time I think pgsql has come much further than mysql, and the focus there has never been as clear as it is here, in terms of "don't surprise the user in dangerous ways." I think the mysql fanbois who say these things in logs are usually just not at all familiar with using pgsql on a daily basis. Under any modern load, pgsql and mysql are usually no more than +/- 30% or so in performance, unless you're using a broken GA release like 5.0.x or so (whichever one tweakers tested them on that it imploded on the Sun 32 thread CPU). To be fair, pgsql has had performance regressions show up, and some of them take a few weeks to figure out. But they're usually not as catastrophic as the one that mysql had in that test. So when I have to use MySQL it's a small project / application that doesn't tax the machine or the db. Like internal ticketing maybe. Whenever I think "man, this might get really big or have thousands of hits per minute." I want pgsql. When I need to process and replicate 200 transactions per second or more, I really want to use pgsql more than mysql. I know that between log shipping and slony I can guarantee downtimes in the minutes during which things switch over, or are switched by hand, than the possible hours involved should I have to restore from backup. Mysql has come a long way, but the still somewhat loose adherence to data integrity princples makes it a bad choice for important data. Until there's a version that just runs on innodb and only innodb or something like it, which has ALL the cool features (network db, transactional db, full text indexing db) in one handler I don't want to mess with it's sort of fits here, sort of fits there feature set. I am happy about the companies that may be forking it. It'd be nice to have a pure GPL no commercial license version that runs on one solid reliable table handler. Or even allows me, the db to easily pick which ones go where, so I don't have banking systems getting built on myisam. I think that focusing on one good table handler in postgresql has been a winning proposition so far. That and release discipline which has been pretty meh grade in the last few years for mysql.
On 2009-07-08, Massa, Harald Armin <chef@ghum.de> wrote: > a quite interesting read. > > http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/stranger-than-fiction-story-online-poker-tracker-postgresql > > > especially as an explanation of the growing number of questions from > Windows-Users of PostgreSQL > > And ... for a tag line: "PostgreSQL. Thousends bet on it." I liked this bit: . "Product Manager: So wait, let me get this straight. You want us to . force our users, who are some of the laziest people on the planet, to . install a full-fledged relational database management system??? On . their home computer??? Like what, they're going to become DBAs? And . you're calling that a feature? Well, why stop there? Why not just ship . them our source code directly and force them to compile it on the . COMMAND LINE? Every user is a programmer, right? Well? ARE YOU OUT OF . YOUR F--KING MIND??" We do that! We were using the non-interactive MSI installer, those who know what's going on seem pleased to see a real database, those who don't, trust us :) it started life as a linux-only application but then someone ported PG and GTK to windows, and NSIS to linux. now we bulld windows installer CDs on linux.