Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?

Nikolay Samokhvalov wrote:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5920796.html

'Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction
to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source
databases.'

Your thoughts?

It probably has little impact on us. It is useful perhaps for developer
servers at existing Oracle sites.

-- 
  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

Hi,

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005, Bruce Momjian wrote:

'Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction
to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source
databases.'

Your thoughts?

It probably has little impact on us. It is useful perhaps for developer
servers at existing Oracle sites.

I hope one day Oracle will understand that "Free Software is not Free
Beer".

--
Devrim GUNDUZ
Kivi Bili�im Teknolojileri - http://www.kivi.com.tr
devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
http://www.gunduz.org

From pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org Sun Oct 30 15:42:50 2005

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"Panic" - that's my middle name. ;)

Had I known how to identify the database at fault, and that it would
have had no effect on the other databases, then I would have handled
this episode differently.

In the event, things seem to be OK. Our old slave db is now acting as
master and the old master rebuilt as the new slave ... courtesy of slon.

I'd like to move to 8.1 but I'm waiting for a quiet period when there's
less development/fire fighting so that I can test all the java
components of our webapp and then manage the upgrade properly.

Maybe suppressing other vacuums once a month, and running the "vacuumdb
-a" option instead wouldn't be a bad idea...

Many thanks for all your support and advice - you've been great help
(and comfort).

John

Tom Lane wrote:

Nikolay Samokhvalov wrote:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5920796.html

'Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction
to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source
databases.'

Your thoughts?

Hm..... so now I can choose between a crippled binary-only oracle
version with no support, and
free-as-in-speech-and-beer postgresql with excellent support on the
mailing list?

I think I'll stay with postgresql ;-)

Just image you are running a production system on oracle 10g express,
and reach
the 4gb limit.... It's already bad enough that some versions of ms
exchange limit your
datafile to 16gb - I don't want my database to do the same..... thanks...

greetings, Florian Pflug

Highlights from the license: My thoughts. This is not free, not even as
in beer. Only good for a year. No production use (which is more
restrictive than no commercial use. IANAL) You have to pay when they
release it.

Quotes (with my bolding)

grants to you a no-charge trial license to use the pre-production beta
version of the Oracle Database Express Edition software, documentation and
product training (the "Software") provided to you by Oracle solely for
evaluation purposes until January 31, 2006. Either party may terminate
the license for the Software at any time. Upon termination, you shall
cease using the Software.

You may not use the Software for any commercial or production purpose.

You shall not: d) disclose results of any benchmark tests of any Software
to any third party without Oracle's prior written approval;

if and when the Software is released in production, you may acquire
licenses for the production version of the Software in accordance with
Oracle's then standard licensing and pricing terms and conditions (which,
at Oracle's sole discretion, may allow license of only some rather than all
of the features of the Software).

pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org wrote on 10/30/2005 01:24:52 PM:

I presume this thread was all brought about by the /. article
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31/0659254&amp;tid=221&amp;tid=1
87

According to the link provided in the /. article
(http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5920796.html), Oracle has *proposed* a
free version by "year end". Obviously this means that current download of
Oracle 10g Express Edition is *not yet available under a free license.*

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of
Richard_D_Levine@raytheon.com
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 10:55 AM
To: nikolay@samokhvalov.com
Cc: Postgresql-General; pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?

Highlights from the license: My thoughts. This is not free, not even as
in beer. Only good for a year. No production use (which is more
restrictive than no commercial use. IANAL) You have to pay when they
release it.

Quotes (with my bolding)

grants to you a no-charge trial license to use the pre-production beta
version of the Oracle Database Express Edition software, documentation and
product training (the "Software") provided to you by Oracle solely for
evaluation purposes until January 31, 2006. Either party may terminate
the license for the Software at any time. Upon termination, you shall
cease using the Software.

You may not use the Software for any commercial or production purpose.

You shall not: d) disclose results of any benchmark tests of any Software
to any third party without Oracle's prior written approval;

if and when the Software is released in production, you may acquire
licenses for the production version of the Software in accordance with
Oracle's then standard licensing and pricing terms and conditions (which,
at Oracle's sole discretion, may allow license of only some rather than all
of the features of the Software).

pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org wrote on 10/30/2005 01:24:52 PM:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5920796.html

'Oracle intends to release a free version of its database, a reaction
to the growing competitive pressure from low-end open-source
databases.'

Your thoughts?

--
Best regards,
Nikolay

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I assume they are probably thinking of a free for non-commercial use,
which is great and all, but I assume that like the majority of folks
here, I am using postgres very much for commercial use, and not just
to run my personal website! So I would say it's not a big deal,
infact it's not even a small deal, it's really nothing.

Alex.

Perhaps I'm the only one to actually have read the article?

Oracle 10g Express Edition HAS been available for free for development
purposes with the previously posted and reviewed limited licenses for quite
some time now.

The news the zdnet.com article is reporting suggests Oracle WILL, by years
end, make the same software available for free - even in production and
commercial use. The Oracle 10g Express Edition is still limited software by
means of hardware resources available to the database and a 4Gb [user] data
file limit.

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Turner [mailto:armtuk@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 11:50 AM
To: Wes Williams
Cc: Postgresql-General; pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?

I assume they are probably thinking of a free for non-commercial use,
which is great and all, but I assume that like the majority of folks
here, I am using postgres very much for commercial use, and not just
to run my personal website! So I would say it's not a big deal,
infact it's not even a small deal, it's really nothing.

Alex.

On 10/31/05, Wes Williams <wes_williams@fcbonline.net> wrote:

I presume this thread was all brought about by the /. article

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31/0659254&amp;tid=221&amp;tid=1

87

According to the link provided in the /. article
(http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5920796.html), Oracle has *proposed* a
free version by "year end". Obviously this means that current download of
Oracle 10g Express Edition is *not yet available under a free license.*

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of
Richard_D_Levine@raytheon.com
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 10:55 AM
To: nikolay@samokhvalov.com
Cc: Postgresql-General; pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?

Highlights from the license: My thoughts. This is not free, not even as
in beer. Only good for a year. No production use (which is more
restrictive than no commercial use. IANAL) You have to pay when they
release it.

Quotes (with my bolding)

grants to you a no-charge trial license to use the pre-production beta
version of the Oracle Database Express Edition software, documentation

and

product training (the "Software") provided to you by Oracle solely for
evaluation purposes until January 31, 2006. Either party may terminate
the license for the Software at any time. Upon termination, you shall
cease using the Software.

You may not use the Software for any commercial or production purpose.

You shall not: d) disclose results of any benchmark tests of any Software
to any third party without Oracle's prior written approval;

if and when the Software is released in production, you may acquire
licenses for the production version of the Software in accordance with
Oracle's then standard licensing and pricing terms and conditions (which,
at Oracle's sole discretion, may allow license of only some rather than

all

of the features of the Software).

pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org wrote on 10/30/2005 01:24:52 PM:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html

If you read the FAQ, you will see:

Oracle has announced an entry-level, small footprint starter database called
Oracle Database 10g Express Edition
(Oracle Database XE), which is:
Free to download
Free to develop & deploy
Free to distribute (including ISVs)

Oracle Database XE is free for runtime usage with the following limitations:
Supports up to 4GB of user data (in addition to Oracle system data)
Single instance only of Oracle Database XE on any server
Only uses and executes on one processor in any server
Can use up to 1GB RAM

Pretty limited. This is mostly a way for people to get hooked with it, or
for existing Oracle users who need a few rinky-dink instances alongside
bigger ones.

On 10/31/05 11:50 AM, "Alex Turner" <armtuk@gmail.com> wrote:

pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org wrote on 10/31/2005 12:02:07 PM:

Perhaps I'm the only one to actually have read the article?

Okay, yeah. I went straight for the license. I have now read the article
and agree with you.

Given both the naming of Oracle 10g Express and the timing of Oracle's
announcement, I think Oracle Express is more of a reaction to pressure
by Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 Express, due to be released Nov 7 but
actually shipped to developers this past Thursday.

I've been a DBA for _many_ years on Sybase, Oracle, SQL Server and
PostgreSQL. From my perspective, Oracle requires a significant amount
of DBA expertise in order to use it, so although I do see Oracle Express
as a certain amount of threat to PostgreSQL, I don't think it's too
significant. I think it's probably more designed to keep current Oracle
users from migrating to SQL Server or possibly to PostgreSQL.

MS SQL Server, on the other hand, while benefiting from a good DBA (like
all RDBMS's do), requires virtually no DBA expertise. (I'd never
consider using Oracle in any sort of embedded, bundled, DBA-less
environment, but I'd have no problem using either PostgreSQL or MS SQL
Server in those cases.) So I do see SQL Server Express as more of a
threat to PostgreSQL, at least on the Windows platform.

I actually see both Oracle Express and SQL Server Express as being more
of a threat to MySQL rather than to PostgreSQL. There are still MANY
many MS Access databases out there supporting departmental applications
or smaller web sites; I think many of these sites traditionally move to
MySQL. Now they may be more likely to move to either Oracle Express or
SQL Server Express, especially in a corporate environment.

However, the other place where both these two (Oracle Express and SQL
Server Express) may hurt is not by taking current users away from
PostgreSQL but rather by taking away future users, and therefore a
certain amount of future growth. Again, in a corporate environment, in
many cases it still takes a somewhat sizeable amount of persuasion to
convince "management" to go with any "free" solution, whereas going with
anything "commercial" is more just a matter of justifying the budget
numbers. Thus it's _much_ less risky to recommend using Oracle Express
or SQL Server Express rather than PostgreSQL or MySQL. It's the old
"you never get fired for buying IBM" all over again. (Same goes for
consultants brought in to work on a new project, do a conversion of an
existing project or recommend a new platform: most of the time they'll
go with the safer solution rather than the riskier one -- there's always
one eye on future consulting business.) No, this obviously won't always
be the case, but it's inevitable that at least some portion of the
projects that would have chosen PostgreSQL or MySQL in the past will now
stick with the "safe" solutions (at least career-wise) in the future.

- Bill

wes_williams@fcbonline.net ("Wes Williams") writes:

Perhaps I'm the only one to actually have read the article?

Oracle 10g Express Edition HAS been available for free for development
purposes with the previously posted and reviewed limited licenses for quite
some time now.

The news the zdnet.com article is reporting suggests Oracle WILL, by
years end, make the same software available for free - even in
production and commercial use. The Oracle 10g Express Edition is
still limited software by means of hardware resources available to
the database and a 4Gb [user] data file limit.

And I daresay that this _can_ be an attractive thing to businesses,
supposing they offer a "production release," gratis.

There are plenty of "departmental applications" out there that involve
limited amounts of data which can fit into the 4GB restriction.

If Oracle provides a way to make it easy and cheap to deploy those, it
can drive a fair bit of future Oracle business.

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "cbbrowne.com")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/languages.html
Twice five syllables
Plus seven can't say much but
That's haiku for you.

pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org wrote on 10/31/2005 01:14:57 PM:

<snip>

And I daresay that this _can_ be an attractive thing to businesses,
supposing they offer a "production release," gratis.

<snip>
True, as long as there is no license clause for future revocation of the
free license at the vendor's whim. Kinda like the M$ clause in their
*open* XML standard. Also, without source, deployments still are under
threat of discontinued support. Kinda like Solaris 9 when Sun said they
didn't know whether the x86 version would be released.

Precisely the point I was trying to make sure everyone would understand
clearly. Although I don't have a copy of Oracle's suspected new license, if
it is close to the existing license verbiage, even though it is "crippled"
by having certain hardware and software limits, those limits are per
physical server. Therefore, anyone could simply deploy several
installations on different physical servers and have quite a collection of
Oracle databases.

One of Oracle's big selling points with this application is that it is very
painless to upgrade to their professional versions of their database by not
requiring ANY change to the existing database or applications - simply plug
your data in and go.

Judging from this, Oracle has decided to follow Microsoft's SQL Server's
free SQL program offer and also a lesson from your local crack dealer. By
the way, I've tried both Microsoft's and Oracle's developer versions and
Oracle has a MUCH better product here at the moment. Good luck even getting
SQL Server installed! You have to stumble upon the "right" beta for .Net 2.0
before the installer will proceed...it managed to find it in only 45
minutes! Enough to make you kick yourself again for trying a Microsoft
product. However, Oracle 10g Express Edition actually installs and performs
quite well.

All and all this is no "danger" to PostgreSQL's existence; though it may
slow uptake in very important markets. I've never thought marketing was
Postgre's strong point...oddly enough, the product is.

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
[mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of Chris Browne
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 1:15 PM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle 10g Express - any danger for Postgres?

And I daresay that this _can_ be an attractive thing to businesses,
supposing they offer a "production release," gratis.

There are plenty of "departmental applications" out there that involve
limited amounts of data which can fit into the 4GB restriction.

If Oracle provides a way to make it easy and cheap to deploy those, it
can drive a fair bit of future Oracle business.

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "cbbrowne.com")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/languages.html
Twice five syllables
Plus seven can't say much but
That's haiku for you.

On 10/31/2005 1:14 PM, Chris Browne wrote:

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...

It's not a joke. It fits exactly the "small web application" needs. Who
will want to pay for a commercial MySQL license when they can run Oracle
for free? Remember, the "open source" aspect "can fix it yourself" isn't
really existent in the MySQL world, so those customers aren't really
looking for open source, they are looking for cheap or free. With the
control over InnoDB, Oracle has an influence on what XE is competing
against. Both offers compete with MS SQL Express as well, so they hit a
lot of small database competition with one stone.

Jan

--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #

Jan Wieck <JanWieck@Yahoo.com> writes:

On 10/31/2005 1:14 PM, Chris Browne wrote:

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...

It's not a joke. It fits exactly the "small web application" needs. Who
will want to pay for a commercial MySQL license when they can run Oracle
for free?

People who can't figure out how to configure Postgres are not likely to
get far with Oracle ;-). Unless Oracle has made some *huge* strides in
ease of installation/administration with 10g, I see this making
practically no dent in MySQL. Or PG for that matter. All they're
really likely to accomplish is to cannibalize some of their own low-end
sales.

regards, tom lane

Still, at least Oracle 10g provides for an easy GUI from which to configure
and perform imports and exports of data. Some of use have need for a
database that can dump all data and accept another series of new data...only
to be dropped again in a few days. The GUI tools make this MUCH easier -
especially when dealing with many different types of tables and data
formats.

The GUI file import/export is one feature I would love to see next to
enhance pgAdmin III!

-----Original Message-----
People who can't figure out how to configure Postgres are not likely to
get far with Oracle ;-). Unless Oracle has made some *huge* strides in
ease of installation/administration with 10g, I see this making
practically no dent in MySQL. Or PG for that matter. All they're
really likely to accomplish is to cannibalize some of their own low-end
sales.

regards, tom lane

They actually did make _some_ strides. The installer actually works
consistently (knock on veneer-covered-pressboard), which is something I
haven't seen since the pre-8i text-mode installs...

Doesn't quite compare to the 5 minute untar/config/build/install/create
database cycle we're used to with PG however.

On 11/1/05 8:49 AM, "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Jan Wieck <JanWieck@Yahoo.com> writes:

On 10/31/2005 1:14 PM, Chris Browne wrote:

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...

It's not a joke. It fits exactly the "small web application" needs. Who
will want to pay for a commercial MySQL license when they can run Oracle
for free?

People who can't figure out how to configure Postgres are not likely to
get far with Oracle ;-). Unless Oracle has made some *huge* strides in
ease of installation/administration with 10g, I see this making
practically no dent in MySQL. Or PG for that matter. All they're
really likely to accomplish is to cannibalize some of their own low-end
sales.

regards, tom lane

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Andrew Rawnsley
Chief Technology Officer
Investor Analytics, LLC
(740) 587-0114
http://www.investoranalytics.com

On 11/1/2005 8:49 AM, Tom Lane wrote:

Jan Wieck <JanWieck@Yahoo.com> writes:

On 10/31/2005 1:14 PM, Chris Browne wrote:

The fact that it appears "a joke" to people wanting to deploy big
databases doesn't prevent it from taking a painful bite out of, oh,
say, certain vendors that forgot to own their own transactional
storage engine...

It's not a joke. It fits exactly the "small web application" needs. Who
will want to pay for a commercial MySQL license when they can run Oracle
for free?

People who can't figure out how to configure Postgres are not likely to
get far with Oracle ;-). Unless Oracle has made some *huge* strides in
ease of installation/administration with 10g, I see this making
practically no dent in MySQL. Or PG for that matter. All they're
really likely to accomplish is to cannibalize some of their own low-end
sales.

With those limitations, there isn't much left to "configure". We are
talking about a 4GB maximum DB size. That is one default tablespace with
appropriate default extent sizes and pctinc. All the user needs to chose
is one of 3 canned config files for using 256, 512 or 1024 MB of RAM.

Jan

--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #

On Tue, 2005-11-01 at 08:05, Wes Williams wrote:

Still, at least Oracle 10g provides for an easy GUI from which to configure
and perform imports and exports of data. Some of use have need for a
database that can dump all data and accept another series of new data...only
to be dropped again in a few days. The GUI tools make this MUCH easier -
especially when dealing with many different types of tables and data
formats.

The GUI file import/export is one feature I would love to see next to
enhance pgAdmin III!

However, on the command line, the polarity is reversed (vague Star Trek
reference there) and PostgreSQL enjoys a MUCH richer and easier to use
set of utilities. I find psql to be much much easier to drive than
oracle's SQL*PLus, which makes my head hurt.

And I can't use a GUI for at least half of what I work on for security
and networking reasons, so I have to have decent command line tools.

I know for many GUI folks the command line seems a cold and forboding
place, and god only knows that if you've ever been forced to use
Oracle's command line tools, the scarring may be permanent, but
honestly, do yourself a favor and spend an afternoon becoming familiar
with psql. It's absolutely fantastic. Far and away the best command
line interface of any database I've ever used, and one of the best
selling points of postgresql.

Between the \? listing of \ commands, and the \h listing of SQL
commands, it has all the documentation right there at your fingertips.