Sun Microsystems has raised the possibility that it might offer customers its own database, a move that could trigger displeasure at Oracle but curry favor with open-source advocates.
Sun floats open-source database idea
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
i think of two candidates for Sun DB (if they use an existing product) Postgre or pure java DaffodilDB.
They could also offer ingres, which is mentioned in the article directly. My sense is that Sun would want to start with something that had a commercial origin, then move from there. That would rule out Postgres, which was also my first thought. Another strike for Postgres is it’s adopted by Redhat and used in a similiar manner by them, as a ‘Redhat’ database. I don’t see Sun doing *anything* in the same manner as Red Hat. Firebird would also be an option I suppose, though it doesn’t seem to have the traction.
Does anybody else notice the irony that the article before this was about the opensource IBM Java database cloudscape?
I think Sun thinks that this open source thing is some sort of playful game. I especially like the page where Ingres’ says that they’ve got their lawyers working with Sun’s on open source licensing compatibility. They’re simply not looking at it as a way to cost-effectively develop software, and they’re definitely not understanding the economics involved in open source development.
Ultimately when you work backwards, either your license is compatible with the GPL in the open source world or it isn’t. IBM have found that out with Eclipse and the CPL, hence the recent changes around Eclipse.
Does anyone actually *READ* the article? SUN *OWN* a database, and they’re going to *OPENSOURCE IT*.
Sun bought Clustra in 2002 and then it disappeared.
But really, do we have to have 6 months of PR ‘leading up to’ an open source release?
If they want to open source their DB – thats great – I hope it works out for them, and i hope both they and the community gain from this move.
But please, make the move, and then tell us about it. What do they expect is going to happen, that theyre going to get people queueing up wainting in breathless anticipation for their Open Source products?
That people will be saying ‘Nah, lets not use Postgres on Redhat today because of what Sun may or may not do tomorrow?’
Why would anyone do that when they can have Open source OSes, databases and desktops today, from a variety of vendors.
If OSS is what the customers are demanding, then Sun should hurry up and satisfy them, because a string of empty promises doesn’t go very far.
Millions of dollars is not ‘playing’ my friend. The formation of a company based on open software and archetecture is not playing my friend.
GPL or no GPL it’s open source.
<Put_On_Conspiracy_TinFoil_Hat>
Is it only me but do I smell a conspiracy here. Firstly you have Sun opening up Solaris. Then the open up a lot of Patents. Now they are talking about doing the same with a database.
So, if these initiatives (plus some others yet to be floated) suceed as Sun wish and droves of OSS developers embrace switch over to their side of the fence (ie non GPL) then they do one of their famous about turns and bring it back into the proprietary camp once more. What have the done?
They have cast their net wide, captured a lot of fish and are now reeling it back in. Gotcha!
As I say this is just my take on what Sun is doing. I hope I am wrong but all this alturism is slightly suspicious.
</Put_On_Conspiracy_TinFoil_Hat>
<Put_On_Conspiracy_TinFoil_Hat>
Is it only me but do I smell a conspiracy here. Firstly you have IBM investing in Linux. Then the open up a lot of Patents. Now they are talking about doing the same with a database.
So, if these initiatives (plus some others yet to be floated) suceed as IBM wish and droves of OSS developers embrace switch over to their side of the fence (ie GPL) then they do one of their famous about turns and bring it back into the proprietary camp once more. What have the done?
They have cast their net wide, captured a lot of fish and are now reeling it back in. Gotcha!
As I say this is just my take on what IBM is doing. I hope I am wrong but all this alturism is slightly suspicious.
</Put_On_Conspiracy_TinFoil_Hat>
Ah But… The difference is in the Licenses. As has been discussed here and elsewhere, the way IBM is doing things is very different to SUN. IBM are far less well known for dong the about turns like Sun has done over the years with Solaris/X86.
Thats my 2roubles worth.
Millions of dollars is not ‘playing’ my friend. The formation of a company based on open software and archetecture is not playing my friend.
I’m afraid millions of dollars guarantees you absolutely nothing, and it certainly doesn’t in the open source world. Either you understand the economics of what you’re involved in or you don’t. I’m afraid Sun don’t despite all the good work they do around Open Office, Apache and Tomcat. The execs at Sun have got hold of this open source thing and they’re playing with it.
GPL or no GPL it’s open source.
I’m afraid it isn’t. The vast majority of the core software in any open sourced system is GPL’d, and because of that, whether it be BSD or Mozilla, it has to ultimately be compatible with it. You can try, but you never get the developers around it that you need if they’re worrying about how compatible their license is. That’s why the CPL hasn’t been terribly popular with developers, especially around Eclipse.
stinks,
I downloaded it and it’s a bloated mess and in my 1/2 hour of fooling around I could not get it to run(on windows). Maybe it’s better on unix?
PostgreSQL on the other hand is excellent and works right of the bat with no fooling around.
The new win32 native version is also excellent.
Who cares if redhat uses it. If sun where to contribute back improvments that would be good, but becasue PG is a BSD license they don’t have to do that.
PostgreSQL 8.0 is the best open source DB I have ever used and far superior to Firebird and MySQL(light years better in this case)
I downloaded it and it’s a bloated mess and in my 1/2 hour of fooling around I could not get it to run(on windows). Maybe it’s better on unix?
Nope. It’s exactly the same on any kind of Unix-like system. That’s probably why people have looked to open source it, because it has become an unmanageable nightmare from a development or user perspective.
Sybase has also become the same thing, and you only need to look as far as the efforts to use it with Bugzilla. You need stored procedures everywhere to get it to perform at any kind of acceptable level, and it is incapable of doing any of the simple things you can do with Postgres, MySQL or even dare I say it Oracle.
PostgreSQL 8.0 is the best open source DB I have ever used and far superior to Firebird and MySQL(light years better in this case)
Postgres has indeed turned into a very, very nice database system, especially with the new version 8.
Does anyone actually *READ* the article? SUN *OWN* a database, and they’re going to *OPENSOURCE IT*.
The article wasn’t about Sun owning their own database and open sourcing it. If actually you read the article you’d find three pages of bollocks in there that refers to nothing of the sort but Sun dithering, talking about it and then some speculation that they would use Ingres.
> Sun bought Clustra in 2002 and then it disappeared.
Clustra didn’t disappear, it is now an integral part of the JES Application Server 7 EE used as session persistence store for HA application server setup. Clustra is quite a kick ass database as it is capable of guaranteeing five nines uptime easily — it was designed for and used in telecom exchanges.
I think that’s Sun’s aim, to build an open source ecosystem around Solaris and whatever database they’re putting out that is open source yet cannot be used to help Linux (and by extension, IBM and Red Hat) due to license incompatibilities. That way they give the impression of giving away their family jewels without actually doing so.
If Sun releases a database under any OSI-approved license — even a bizarro one — then it can run on Liunx. If it’s any good it will be immediately sucked into Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.
I’m afraid millions of dollars guarantees you absolutely nothing, and it certainly doesn’t in the open source world.
Of course it does. It got IBM a huge following in the open source workd,
Either you understand the economics of what you’re involved in or you don’t. I’m afraid Sun don’t despite all the good work they do around Open Office, Apache and Tomcat. The execs at Sun have got hold of this open source thing and they’re playing with it.
Sun understands open source. They have been doing it for a long time now.
I’m afraid it isn’t. The vast majority of the core software in any open sourced system is GPL’d, and because of that, whether it be BSD or Mozilla, it has to ultimately be compatible with it. You can try, but you never get the developers around it that you need if they’re worrying about how compatible their license is. That’s why the CPL hasn’t been terribly popular with developers, especially around Eclipse.
This whole if it isn’t GPL it isn’t open source is utter nonsense. Most developers who flock to the GPL are either relegious nuts or brain washed by Stallman.
But I’d like to give developers a little more credit than that. My theory is exciting projects attract developers. To this day Linux, being the most exciting GPL project has attracted a lot of developers and since Linux user land is based on GNU, GPL has become the most popular license.
I am sure if developers find other projects exciting enough, the license would be the least of thier concerns.
This whole if it isn’t GPL it isn’t open source is utter nonsense. Most developers who flock to the GPL are either relegious nuts or brain washed by Stallman.
When will people stop with these cheap shots? RMS is not concerned with open source, rather the four freedoms:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
that he feels should be guaranteed to users of software. Many other licenses:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
satisfy this definition and you will notice that there is no problem with them. The only thing “better” about the GPL from his perspective is that it is the strongest way to spread the four freedoms, as opposed to non-reciprocating licenses which can result in a user further down the distribution chain being denied those freedoms.
When will people stop with these cheap shots? RMS is not concerned with open source, rather the four freedoms:
Yes we are discussing Open Source here and someone used it in conjunction with GPL. Claiming that if it is incompatible with GPL developors won’t touch it.
The other OSS project that is perhaps as popular as Linux or infact more popular is the Mozilla project and even though the FSF calims the MPL is incompatible with the GPL. They have gone throught considerable relicnesing efforts because of the FSF.
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html#why-relicensing
It is unclear whether a developer could be successfully sued for copyright infringement on grounds related to these perceived license incompatibilities. However, to eliminate possible uncertainties concerning this question, and to address the concerns of developers who wished to use Mozilla code in applications whose code was otherwise licensed under the GPL or LGPL, we decided to seek relicensing of the Mozilla code to address the perceived license incompatibilities for both the GPL and the LGPL.
If this isn’t a reaction severe pressure from Stallman. What is it?
Mind you were are again discussing Open Source and Stallman and the GPL is about Free Software.
A project should be able to choose what OpenSource license they want to use. If Stallman strong arms them into submitting to the GPL, I don’t know what else to say.