Thread: postgresql or mysql or oracle?
how do you compare postgresql to mysql or oracle 10i which has become an open source material? thank you for your expert opinion. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
"rporticio@yahoo.com (Ramon Orticio)" wrote in pgsql.novice:
> how do you compare postgresql to mysql or oracle 10i
> which has become an open source material?
What does Oracle mean by "open source?" Is it 100% open source, or
only partially, or do they mean something different? Many commercial
organizations have made claims that their products are "open source" but
have worded such claims in clever ways to hide the fact that they really
aren't, and so I remain skeptical given this general history of the
industry (I have no idea if Oracle is doing this or not).
> thank you for your expert opinion.
Although I don't consider myself an expert in this area, one of the
things that I notice about these three products is the price:
Oracle: Not free for most uses
MySQL: Not free for commercial use
PostgreSQL: Free for all uses
The main reason I moved away from Oracle is that they dropped support
for Novell's NetWare OS. On the other hand, MySQL is officially supported
on NetWare now, and PostgreSQL is on its way there (I began learning
PostgreSQL by experimenting with beta versions of it on NetWare, and after
much testing to see how it and the other two fit my needs I became a big
fan).
In my opinion both Oracle and PostgreSQL support transactions
properly, but MySQL doesn't because it allows for the mixture of both
transactional and non-transactional tables. I don't know if this issue has
ever been resolved, but it was still a problem as far as I knew three
months ago.
Oracle and PostgreSQL are in a different league than MySQL. For
projects that I know are going to remain small pretty much forever, and
don't require data reliability, I would select MySQL, but for the larger
projects (even if they start out small) I would use PostgreSQL (or Oracle
if the customer required it).
Oracle has table spaces, but MySQL does not. PostgreSQL 8 supports
table spaces (I haven't verified this yet, but I have no reason to doubt
it), and this is important for optimization nuts and organization freaks
like myself.
[If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:55:23 +0000, Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote: > > MySQL: Not free for commercial use > > [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.] MsSQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get the code under an alternate license.
Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
> Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:
>> MySQL: Not free for commercial use
>> [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
> MySQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide
> by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by
> these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get the
> code under an alternate license.
I seem to recall some flaps about MySQL AB using an overly tight
interpretation of the GPL and therefore telling people they needed
commercial licenses in cases where independent observers thought not.
Too lazy to look up the details at the moment, though.
regards, tom lane
Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
> > Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:
> >> MySQL: Not free for commercial use
> >> [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
>
> > MySQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide
> > by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by
> > these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get the
> > code under an alternate license.
>
> I seem to recall some flaps about MySQL AB using an overly tight
> interpretation of the GPL and therefore telling people they needed
> commercial licenses in cases where independent observers thought not.
> Too lazy to look up the details at the moment, though.
Found it:
http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/opensource-license.html
It is better than it used to be where it really pushed commercial
license for commercial use, but they still have:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that MySQL AB can only give advice on which license is right
for you. The final judgment, of course can be made only by a court of
law. With that said, we recommend the commercial license to all
commercial and government organizations. This frees you from the broad
and strict requirements of the GPL license.
...
To anyone in doubt, we recommend the commercial license. It is never
wrong. Thanks to our cost-effective way of producing software, we are
able to sell our commercial licenses at prices well under the industry
average.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
* Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> [0132 18:32]:
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:55:23 +0000,
> Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:
> >
> > MySQL: Not free for commercial use
> >
> > [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
>
> MsSQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide
> by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by
> these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get the
> code under an alternate license.
Ok, but 'free with strings and hoops to jump through' is still not as
useful as 'do what you like with it'.
Lets' not start a 'my license > your license' thread.
--
'And if you think you're going to bleed all over me
you're even wronger than you normally be'
-- The Specials, 'Little Bitch'
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
Dick Davies wrote:
If your code is covered by GPL or falls under the "FOSS Exception" it's free.
Also :
"Free use for those who never copy, modify or distribute. As long as you never distribute
(internally or externally) the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering
your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not."
which means that you are allowed to link to it from your application without problems, whether your
application is under GPL or a commercial closed source one.
The problem is that under the current license, you are allowed to make your closed-source software
to work with MySQL, as long as you do not distribute MySQL with your application. This means that your
customers have to install MySQL themselves (do you trust them to do it right?), then install your application,
and there is no problem with the license.
Our company chose to go with Postgresql for exactly this reason. We think that our installation routine should
install all necessary parts, and that includes the SQL server part. The Postgresql license allows one to do that, the
MySQL one doesn't. That sealed it for us. (The fact that MySQL is lagging in features as compared to Postgresql
helped too).
Dirk Cleenwerck
Chief programmer
Useitgroup NV
http://www.useitgroup.com
MySQL is sorta free :* Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> [0132 18:32]:On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 07:55:23 +0000, Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:MySQL: Not free for commercial use [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]MsSQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get the code under an alternate license.Ok, but 'free with strings and hoops to jump through' is still not as useful as 'do what you like with it'. Lets' not start a 'my license > your license' thread.
If your code is covered by GPL or falls under the "FOSS Exception" it's free.
Also :
"Free use for those who never copy, modify or distribute. As long as you never distribute
(internally or externally) the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering
your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not."
which means that you are allowed to link to it from your application without problems, whether your
application is under GPL or a commercial closed source one.
The problem is that under the current license, you are allowed to make your closed-source software
to work with MySQL, as long as you do not distribute MySQL with your application. This means that your
customers have to install MySQL themselves (do you trust them to do it right?), then install your application,
and there is no problem with the license.
Our company chose to go with Postgresql for exactly this reason. We think that our installation routine should
install all necessary parts, and that includes the SQL server part. The Postgresql license allows one to do that, the
MySQL one doesn't. That sealed it for us. (The fact that MySQL is lagging in features as compared to Postgresql
helped too).
Dirk Cleenwerck
Chief programmer
Useitgroup NV
http://www.useitgroup.com
Clinging to sanity, tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us (Tom Lane) mumbled into her beard:
> Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
>> Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:
>>> MySQL: Not free for commercial use
>>> [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
>
>> MySQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide
>> by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by
>> these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get
>> the code under an alternate license.
>
> I seem to recall some flaps about MySQL AB using an overly tight
> interpretation of the GPL and therefore telling people they needed
> commercial licenses in cases where independent observers thought
> not. Too lazy to look up the details at the moment, though.
One of the conspicuous things that has _changed_ is the license on the
libraries used to access the DB server.
It used to be that the libraries were licensed under the Library GPL
(LGPL), in which case you could "safely" link them into otherwise
proprietary applications without running afoul of the license. (There
are some conditions on how you do that, but they are not generally
troublesome to follow.)
With version 4 of the product, the libraries were re-licensed under
the GPL, which has rather more troublesome implications for anything
you might link to it.
When SAPDB was taken over, the same change was made for its client
access libraries, causing a fair bit of consternation to "clients" who
had grown accustomed to SAP's license choice.
I think what people are reading isn't so much an intended reading of
the GPL as a reading of the company's _intent_.
When the SAPDB license change came up, the company did elaborate on
intent:
"Our guiding principle is to have all our source code open, and
to offer it free of payment (i.e. gratis) to those who commit to
doing the same. We have concluded that the GPL licence best
fulfills this principle, and that's why we use the GPL.
Therefore the answer to (a questioner's) question is: "Your PHP
app that works with MySQL, if distributed, will either have
to be GPL (or another OSI-approved and MySQL-approved open
source licence) or you will need a commercial licence of
MySQL."
Sometimes people say "But I cannot open source my application!"
and they may have valid reasons for this. Our response is then:
"If you have a valid reason not to be open source, wouldn't that
same reasoning apply to us?."
This goes to the core of MySQL AB's business idea of Quid pro Quo
- if you are open source, we are open source - if you are closed
source, we are commercial."
I think it's plenty good enough to understand their intent, and they
have stated their intent with admirable clarity. (We may not
necessarily _like_ the intent, but that doesn't mean they weren't
clear about it.)
Users that fight their intent will make themselves into adversaries,
irrespective of what may be their methodology for interpreting
licenses.
--
let name="cbbrowne" and tld="gmail.com" in name ^ "@" ^ tld;;
http://linuxfinances.info/info/unix.html
"Anyone who says you can have a lot of widely dispersed people hack
away on a complicated piece of code and avoid total anarchy has never
managed a software project." Andrew Tanenbaum, 1992.
You gotta be kidding.