Humor me: Postgresql vs. MySql (esp. licensing)
Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
the flamethrowers.
I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.
It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.
My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs low,
and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company would have to
license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
the company.
Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?
Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
this has changed?
Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.
John
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 11:28:00 -0400 (EDT) John Wells <jb@sourceillustrated.com> wrote:
It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.
you should also cite conformity to standards. MySQL is significantly
different from SQL standards in a number of regards. not that any are fully
conformant, but there are spots where MySQL is seriously "out there".
richard
--
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Averill Park Networking 518-573-7592
Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 16:28, John Wells wrote:
Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
the flamethrowers.I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.
Speed depends on the nature of use and the complexity of queries. If
you are doing updates of related tables, ACID is of vital importance and
MySQL doesn't provide it.
My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs low,
and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company would have to
license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
the company.
Unless they actually attach extra conditions to the GPL (i.e. "This
product is licensed under GPL with the following extra conditions...")
this is rubbish. The GPL allows you to do what you like with the
software internally; its restrictions only apply to further
distribution. MySQL would _like_ you to pay for support or buy a
commercial licence, but you only _need_ to buy a licence if you want to
distribute a modified or linked MySQL without distributing your own
source code.
If that position changes, we (Debian) will need to move MySQL from
Debian's main archive to its non-free section, or even drop it
altogether. So do let me know if that becomes necessary!
Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?
MySQL is very good for simple queries by not too many users at a time.
Otherwise it's no better than PostgreSQL and often worse to unusable,
according to other posts I've seen.
Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
this has changed?
Not that I know of.
Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.
I took over maintenance of a project written in MySQL. It is a total
nightmare. No triggers, foreign keys or constraints, and bizarre
timestamp handling. Given the choice, I wouldn't touch it with a ten
foot pole.
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
James 1:13,14
Richard Welty wrote:
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 11:28:00 -0400 (EDT) John Wells <jb@sourceillustrated.com> wrote:
It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.you should also cite conformity to standards. MySQL is significantly
different from SQL standards in a number of regards. not that any are fully
conformant, but there are spots where MySQL is seriously "out there".
Yeah.. like inserting a biiig number in integer field in a transaction without
error and not getting it back after commit.. or accepting '00-00-00 00:00:00' as
a valid datetime stamp.. something like that..
How much deviation is that from ACID? 180 degrees...:-)
One of my friend lost data with mysql yesterday.. The machine was taken down for
disk upgrade and mysql apperantly did not commit the last insert.. OK he was
using myisam but still..:-)
Shridhar
Hi John,
I've been thinking about this for sometime, since a couple of my
associates are looking to build a commercial app based around JDBC. The
difficulty came when we looked at redistributing a MySQL JDBC driver
.jar with the application. From what I can tell, since you distribute
the JDBC driver they assume that somewhere it's going to be used with a
MySQL server and therefore requires licensing. It wasn't exactly clear
IMHO or straightforward. So they've decided to go with PG only for the
time being, which makes running the server on Windows a little more
difficult, but who wants to run windows anyway!
As far as speed goes, I think that there isn't enough in it anymore to
comment about. Sure MySQL is faster in XYZ scenario, but PG is faster
in ABC scenario, swings and roundabouts. IMHO the only place where
MySQL has a clear advantage is the fact that it replicates right out of
the box, with very little difficulty (see my earlier post today) and is
quite robust.
Just my 2 Cents
Cheers
T.
John Wells wrote:
Show quoted text
Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
the flamethrowers.I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs low,
and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company would have to
license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
the company.Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
this has changed?Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.
John
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Oliver Elphick said:
Unless they actually attach extra conditions to the GPL (i.e. "This
product is licensed under GPL with the following extra conditions...")
this is rubbish. The GPL allows you to do what you like with the
software internally; its restrictions only apply to further
distribution. MySQL would _like_ you to pay for support or buy a
commercial licence, but you only _need_ to buy a licence if you want to
distribute a modified or linked MySQL without distributing your own
source code.If that position changes, we (Debian) will need to move MySQL from
Debian's main archive to its non-free section, or even drop it
altogether. So do let me know if that becomes necessary!
Then read this page: http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html
Very carefully. Particularly the sentence "As long as you never
distribute (internally or externally)"...
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, John Wells wrote:
Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
the flamethrowers.I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.
MySQL almost has acid support, but their failure to support data type
constraints (i.e. insert the number 8 billion in an int4 and get the
number 2^30 back when you select it, with NO WARNING of an overflow.)
Postgresql actually has a far more active community, they just don't have
as large of a marketing wing as MySQL. Keep in mind, community means the
people using it answering questions on lists to me, not seeing a new press
release every three weeks telling us how some new feature has been added.
Postgresql has community in spades, and that community is mostly people
who do things like run the .org and .info domains, not the folks who run
large text based discussion sites like slashdot.
Everytime you do to slashdot, you use one database to get there (.org is
resolved by postgresql databases) and another to display contents (mysql
runs their backend.)
When was the last time you typed in a .org domain and didn't get a
response for a site you knew existed? On the other hand, when was the
last time you went to Slashdot or Kuro5hin and got a static screen with
the login box showing because the database was down again?
Your consultant sounds like a cheer leader. I like cheer leaders, when
they have pom poms and are doing the splits, but they have no place in
deciding which technology to use.
I've recently been testing Postgresql on our new boxes for surviving
having the plug pulled in the middle of 200 simultaneous transactions. On
our old PIII-750x2 machine with SCSI drives, the database comes right back
up, no corruption. You should demand to test both MySQL and Postgresql
under those circumstances and see how each does.
Speed is a seconday concern for a database, reliability comes first, and
Postgresql has that in spades.
My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs low,
and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company would have to
license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
the company.
Licensing isn't as big a deal as some would think, after all, a commercial
MySQL license if chump change compared to the support contract on a Sun
E10K or a good network switch.
Yes, I still prefer the more pure Postgresql BSD license, but it's not a
sticking point for me.
Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?
Caught up? It's been much faster for a while on many things. for
instance, how long does it take for MySQL to return a dataset from a view?
Well, since that feature's not implemented, Postgresql is much faster at
that. how long does it take MySQL to fire a trigger? It doesn't have
them, so Postgresql wins there. It's like comparing a space station to a
lawn mower.
In general, MySQL is a bit faster at ultra simple queries, while
Postgresql is quite a bit faster at complex queries. The more complexity
you throw at the database, the better postgresql handles it. MySQL's lack
of features and tendency to fail silently when it should complain loudly
makes it suitable for content management, but not for transactional work
like financials / payroll / forecasting / cost benefit analyses, etc...
Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
this has changed?
Not really. Firstly, you have to use innodb tables, and if you forget, it
silently forgets to remind you that you've chosen the wrong data type.
Secondly, it doesn't support any form of constraints other than
fk/pk/unique. and it doesn't support data type constraints as mentioned
above.
Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.
Sure, you might wanna trawl the general and advocacy archives for more
discussions in the last year or so.
"Shridhar" == Shridhar Daithankar <shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in> writes:
Shridhar> Yeah.. like inserting a biiig number in integer field in a transaction
Shridhar> without error and not getting it back after commit.. or accepting
Shridhar> '00-00-00 00:00:00' as a valid datetime stamp.. something like that..
Shridhar> How much deviation is that from ACID? 180 degrees...:-)
Unverified, but you can apparently try to store a huge number into a
short integer, and MySQL silently truncates to maxint. No error. No
warning.
No place for it in a real business environment. :(
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On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 17:07, John Wells wrote:
Oliver Elphick said:
If that position changes, we (Debian) will need to move MySQL from
Debian's main archive to its non-free section, or even drop it
altogether. So do let me know if that becomes necessary!Then read this page: http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html
Very carefully. Particularly the sentence "As long as you never
distribute (internally or externally)"...
But as far as Debian is concerned, paragraph 1 applies:
1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
If your application is licensed under GPL or compatible OSI license
approved by MySQL AB, you are free and welcome to ship any GPL software
of MySQL AB with your application. By "application" we mean any type of
software application, system, tool or utility. For doing this, you do
not need a separate signed agreement with MySQL AB, because the GPL text
is sufficient...
That makes it free under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so I have
no grounds for requesting its removal. :-(
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
James 1:13,14
In an attempt to throw the authorities off his trail, jb@sourceillustrated.com ("John Wells") transmitted:
It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired
before bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and
community support, as well as ACID support.
You should ask that consultant what he anticipates the licensing fees
will be, and why. It seems improbable that would be cheap.
But don't bother using us as the source of questions; head to the
"horse's mouth."
<http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html>
And compare to...
<http://www.postgresql.org/licence.html>
My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs
low, and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict
on "fair use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company
would have to license the commercial version if it were simply used
operationally within the company.
To put it in their words...
"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."
When someone proposed building an LGPLed interface to MaxDB (what they
call their acquisition of SAP-DB), the comments were also quite
illuminating:
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=sapdb-general&m=106045880005921&w=2>
--
select 'aa454' || '@' || 'freenet.carleton.ca';
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/languages.html
I am not a number!
I am a free man!
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 11:29, Oliver Elphick wrote:
But as far as Debian is concerned, paragraph 1 applies:
1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
If your application is licensed under GPL or compatible OSI license
approved by MySQL AB, you are free and welcome to ship any GPL software
of MySQL AB with your application. By "application" we mean any type of
software application, system, tool or utility. For doing this, you do
not need a separate signed agreement with MySQL AB, because the GPL text
is sufficient...That makes it free under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so I have
no grounds for requesting its removal. :-(
As I understand it, that paragraph does not "clear" mysql under the
DFSG. Requirement 1 of the DFSG is:
Free Redistribution
The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from
selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
software distribution containing programs from several different
sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for
such sale.
The mysql license restricts the distribution of mysql if the aggregate
distribution contains non-GPL software. DFSG #1 does not allow for a
distinction between free and non-free software among the "components of
an aggregate system". Neither does the GPL make such distinctions.
The "Commercial use for everyone else" term is either (1) completely
incompatible with the GPL, or (2) completely circumventable, since if I
received MySQL sources under the GPL, under section 2.b. of the GPL I
have the obligation to use GPL (with no MySQL AB additions) for any
third party I distribute to, for any purpose. So I put my noncommercial
GPL sources for MySQL on my noncommercial FTP server, and anyone can
download and use them for any purpose, commercial or not, solely under
the terms of the GPL, because the GPL is how I got the source from MySQL
AB.
In any case, it's a stupid, self-inconsistent license and really needs
to be changed immediately.
It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.
The fact is that PG has features that MySQL doesn't have that are REALLY
needed. The big ones being views, subselects, functions, triggers, and
constraints. Small queries run by a few users may run faster on MySQL.
When you get to real queries by large groups, it almost always favors PG.
In fact, as youre application grows, you will find MySQL completely
useless. I always get frustrated when MySQL is touted as a great
open-source database. Especially when the field is very rich - PG, SAP,
and Firebird all come to mind.
Jon
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 17:56, Bill Gribble wrote:
The mysql license restricts the distribution of mysql if the aggregate
distribution contains non-GPL software. DFSG #1 does not allow for a
distinction between free and non-free software among the "components of
an aggregate system". Neither does the GPL make such distinctions.The "Commercial use for everyone else" term is either (1) completely
incompatible with the GPL, or (2) completely circumventable, since if I
received MySQL sources under the GPL, under section 2.b. of the GPL I
have the obligation to use GPL (with no MySQL AB additions) for any
third party I distribute to, for any purpose. So I put my noncommercial
GPL sources for MySQL on my noncommercial FTP server, and anyone can
download and use them for any purpose, commercial or not, solely under
the terms of the GPL, because the GPL is how I got the source from MySQL
AB.
You do misunderstand this, I'm afraid. The MySQL user has a choice of 2
mutually exclusive licences if he is going to distribute: either GPL,
which means opening his own code, or commercial. MySQL's option 2 (free
for internal use) is meaningless and unenforceable (what on earth is
internal distribution as opposed to use?), but not relevant to Debian
which only cares if the software is DFSG-compliant. Option 1 (GPL) is
available and makes it DFSG-free, so the other licence options don't
need to be examined.
Debian's copy of MySQL is therefore distributed under GPL. I don't
think we do reproduce the other licence options. Any copy obtained from
Debian is therefore automatically GPL. To get a commercial copy, you
would, strictly, have to go back to MySQL's site.
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
James 1:13,14
"OE" == Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:
OE> But as far as Debian is concerned, paragraph 1 applies:
OE> 1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
[[ ... ]]
OE> That makes it free under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so I have
OE> no grounds for requesting its removal. :-(
So if I build and sell an appliance (hardware+software) based on
debian and using the 'free' collection of software, suddenly I'm not
in compliance with their license. Sounds like a time-bomb waiting to
explode.
--
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Internet: khera@kciLink.com Rockville, MD +1-240-453-8497
AIM: vivekkhera Y!: vivek_khera http://www.khera.org/~vivek/
On Wed, Oct 08, 2003 at 05:29:44PM +0100, Oliver Elphick wrote:
1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
If your application is licensed under GPL or compatible OSI license
approved by MySQL AB, you are free and welcome to ship any GPL software
of MySQL AB with your application. By "application" we mean any type of
software application, system, tool or utility. For doing this, you do
not need a separate signed agreement with MySQL AB, because the GPL text
is sufficient...
So, what is the list of "compatible OSI licenses approved by MySQL AB"?
Can they modify such a list?
--
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"La experiencia nos dice que el hombre pel� millones de veces las patatas,
pero era forzoso admitir la posibilidad de que en un caso entre millones,
las patatas pelar�an al hombre" (Ijon Tichy)
Hello,
Here is the simple thing about MySQL licensing. It is GPL. If you
modify the mySQL source or you link a proprietary app to mySQL without
a commercial license. You must distrubute your changes and or
application as GPL or GPL compatibile.
As far as speed is concerned: PostgreSQL is faster under
transactional/heavy loaded systems.
MySQL is very fast for "Hey, I need to get a web page up that has some
basic dynamic data"
MySQL is not ACID compliant, do not be fooled. The easiest argument is
this:
If you have a 32 bit integer column, and you try to insert a 64 bit
number... logical thought would suggest that the database should
throw an exception (which is a requirement of the 'C' in ACID) or fail
in some way. MySQL will not fail, instead it will insert a truncated
value of the 64 bit number and thus screw all of your data in the future.
There are others which I am sure MANY people can point out.
Sincerely,
Joshua Drake
John Wells wrote:
Yes, I know you've seen the above subject before, so please be gentle with
the flamethrowers.I'm preparing to enter a discussion with management at my company
regarding going forward as either a MySql shop or a Postgresql shop.It's my opinion that we should be using PG, because of the full ACID
support, and the license involved. A consultant my company hired before
bringing me in is pushing hard for MySql, citing speed and community
support, as well as ACID support.My biggest concern with MySQL is licensing. We need to keep costs low,
and last I remember the parent company was being pretty strict on "fair
use" under the GPL. If I recall, they even said a company would have to
license the commercial version if it were simply used operationally within
the company.Also, I was under the impression that Postgresql had pretty much caught up
with MySql in the speed category...is this not the case?Finally, ACID support in mysql always seemed kind of a hack....perhaps
this has changed?Thanks for any input (armament ;) ) you can provide.
John
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Editor-N-Chief - PostgreSQl.Org - http://www.postgresql.orgOn Wed, 2003-10-08 at 20:28, Vivek Khera wrote:
"OE" == Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:
OE> But as far as Debian is concerned, paragraph 1 applies:
OE> 1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
[[ ... ]]
OE> That makes it free under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so I have
OE> no grounds for requesting its removal. :-(So if I build and sell an appliance (hardware+software) based on
debian and using the 'free' collection of software, suddenly I'm not
in compliance with their license. Sounds like a time-bomb waiting to
explode.
It's licensed under the GPL, which means that you can indeed sell it, SO
LONG AS you make your own source code available to your customer under
the GPL or a compatible licence. Nothing in the GPL stops you demanding
money for the software; what it requires is that you make your source
code available. It's whole purpose is to force the freeing of source
code; it is not much concerned with money. For example, I remember
years ago installing a DG Aviion operating system upgrade, where I found
that the compiler was gcc, with the GPL prominently attached. And every
embedded-Linux device is in the same situation.
MySQL's licence does not require you to buy a licence for _any_
commercial use, but only for commercial use where you do not release
your source code under a GPL-compatible licence.
There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about the GPL. Maybe
Microsoft's campaign has been bearing fruit in unlikely quarters...
--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0 E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
James 1:13,14
Oliver Elphick wrote:
So if I build and sell an appliance (hardware+software) based on
debian and using the 'free' collection of software, suddenly I'm not
in compliance with their license. Sounds like a time-bomb waiting to
explode.It's licensed under the GPL, which means that you can indeed sell it, SO
LONG AS you make your own source code available to your customer under
the GPL or a compatible licence. Nothing in the GPL stops you demanding
money for the software; what it requires is that you make your source
code available. It's whole purpose is to force the freeing of source
code; it is not much concerned with money. For example, I remember
You also have to allow anyone who is given the source code the ability
to freely distribute it too. Meaning, you can't prevent one of your
customers from putting the code up on ftp and distributing it to anyone.
--
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+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
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-----Original Message-----
From: Oliver Elphick [mailto:olly@lfix.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 3:10 PM
To: Vivek Khera
Cc: PostgreSQL general list
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Humor me: Postgresql vs. MySql (esp. licensing)On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 20:28, Vivek Khera wrote:
"OE" == Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:
OE> But as far as Debian is concerned, paragraph 1 applies:
OE> 1. Free use for those who are 100% GPL
[[ ... ]]
OE> That makes it free under the Debian Free Software
Guidelines, so I
OE> have no grounds for requesting its removal. :-(
So if I build and sell an appliance (hardware+software) based on
debian and using the 'free' collection of software,suddenly I'm not
in compliance with their license. Sounds like a time-bomb
waiting to
explode.
It's licensed under the GPL, which means that you can indeed
sell it, SO LONG AS you make your own source code available
to your customer under the GPL or a compatible licence.
Nothing in the GPL stops you demanding money for the
software; what it requires is that you make your source code
available.
Then who's going to pay for it?
It's whole purpose is to force the freeing of
source code; it is not much concerned with money. For
example, I remember years ago installing a DG Aviion
operating system upgrade, where I found that the compiler was
gcc, with the GPL prominently attached. And every
embedded-Linux device is in the same situation.MySQL's licence does not require you to buy a licence for
_any_ commercial use, but only for commercial use where you
do not release your source code under a GPL-compatible licence.There seems to be an awful lot of confusion about the GPL.
Maybe Microsoft's campaign has been bearing fruit in unlikely
quarters...
The reason that there is a lot of confusion is that the license
conditions are extremely confusing.
Show quoted text
--
Oliver Elphick
Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK
http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
GPG: 1024D/3E1D0C1C: CA12 09E0
E8D5 8870 5839 932A 614D 4C34 3E1D 0C1C
========================================
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man; But every man is tempted, when he
is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
James 1:13,14---------------------------(end of
broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index
scan if your
joining column's datatypes do not match
Import Notes
Resolved by subject fallback
One of my friend lost data with mysql yesterday.. The machine was taken down for
disk upgrade and mysql apperantly did not commit the last insert.. OK he was
using myisam but still..:-)
It sounds like that is more a problem with improper operating protocols
than with the underlying database.
Would PG know enough to do a commit regardless of how the database was
shut down? A second question is whether doing a commit is what the user
or application would always want to have happen, as it could result in a
half-completed transaction.
--
Mike Nolan
