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Sun Hints At Open-Source Database Offering
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Feb 07, 2005 07:44 AM
from the trial-balloon-up-flagpole dept.
from the trial-balloon-up-flagpole dept.
An anonymous reader points out a ZDNet story which begins "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," writing "Last week, during a meeting with financial analysts, Chief Executive Scott McNealy showed a slide that placed the words 'Sun DB' next to a list of existing database products. McNealy offered no details besides 'stay tuned.'"
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Uhm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Uhm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Make the PHB's feel all warm and fuzzy. Also see: StarOffice versus OpenOffice.
Parent
No need. Just handy. (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Competition against proprietary. More open source solutions, less proprietary solutions. Another backstab to MSSQL
3) Open source = box of ideas. Port whatever Sun database has cool in its code base to other free databases, make them better.
4) Easier portability to other databases for proprietary software. If something uses SunDB and nothing else, having SunDB source you can easily write glue to make that thing run i.e. on PostgreSQL
5) "Do we need"... and does SUN need another not-quite-competitive piece of proprietary software? What is better, dump it or release as Open Source?
6) Open Source replaces negative competition with cooperation. There probably will be quite a bit current Open Source database developers can learn from Sun developers - and vice versa. And since it's no longer a trade sectret, the exchange is possible. Help? Why not?
7) The Name. Having such a name as SUN behind this thing, customers who would otherwise never trust the "bunch of hippies" who write Free Software may adopt it. And then more of Open Source.
8) Is it worse than others? Who knows what will the benchmarks show...
9) Another move towards OS - another example, another encouragement for others to open up their proprietary products.
10) Don't look the gift horse in the mouth.
Parent
Re:Uhm... (Score:3, Informative)
Funny, I seem to recall using both on PostgreSQL [postgresql.org], which I had compiled from the BSD-licensed source...
Oh really? Um, yay.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Throw money into an existing oss database instead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their resources would be better spent on improving an existing open-source db. My personal favorit is Postgresql but hey, it's their money.
Build or Buy ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that a reasonably useful database system would be several hundred thousand lines of code, and, that Oracle & IBM have a 25 year head start not to mention MicroSofts 10 year head start. I don't think it would make sense for SUN to roll thier own database software.
So the question is who are they gonna buy? IBM has already snapped up Informix. CA has "given" Ingres to the Open Source community. SAP has donated SAP/DB to MySql. MicroSoft is unlikely to sell Access or SQLServer. Which leaves -- Sybase?
Could be intersting.
I doubt they can unseat MySQL... (Score:3, Interesting)
This begs the question; exactly what role would high-end Open Source DB software be able to fill today? Oracle is well entrenched with both DBAs and businesses -- Unless there are serious flaws in it that I am unaware of, I don't see the SunDB going very far.
Re:I doubt they can unseat MySQL... (Score:3, Informative)
Say Ingres (Score:5, Interesting)
a) It is Open source
b) CA is a non-competitor (no application server)
c) CA has been harmonizing their open source license with Sun's (I wonder why?)
d) CA hopes to make some buck from Ingress and even if they split it even, they're going to make a shitload more than by cooperating with Oracle.
e) Ingres has parallel features like Oracle RAC so it's more suitable for Sun's vision and for enterprise customers than PostgreSQL or other open source databases.
f) Oracle is competing with Sun (Oracle's application servers compete with Sun's J2EE servers/apps); there's no reason for Sun to help Oracle.
I'd really really enjoy see Oracle on their own. I've really had enough of their sales people...
The time for them to pause and think real hard how they're going to compete in the future.
Did they really think their competitors were going to stand idly and watch them take all the money (Oracle + Linux).... Hahahaha....
Linux the greatest threat to Sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux the greatest threat to Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fud fud and more goddamn fud more like it. "Sun has decided that Linux is a threat" "Sun are in bed with MS". You mean the settlement patent that Gosling recently said "means less and less to us".
Sun gave us Open Office, and a damn lot of support for free, as well as a shitload of other things, and now you are "wondering" (a sneakier more underhanded way of accusing them) if they are going to stop. Well, if that is the gratitude they get, don't be surprised if they do.
I wonder how long Sun will still distribute GNU licensed software with Solaris.
And what does this have to do with anything? They have no reason to remove it, and if they did this would only be an inconvenience to Solaris users. It would do nothing to hurt GNU/GPL/Linux or whatever.
It is only logical that Sun use it's resources against it major threat, which is now Linux and the GPL.
Just more unusbstantiated accusations.
Parent
Clustra anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Used it a lot myself [leyton.org], and felt that - like many other companies Sun have bought - the pointy haired bosses there just didn't realise what they'd acquired.
Maybe a much-needed clue has finally hit home at Sun, and they're going to give Clustra the lease of life it sorely needs and deserves.
No matter what DB it is, Sun needs its "stack" (Score:4, Interesting)
With MySQL being dual-licensed, and questionable for Enterprise-level DB use, it's not really an option to sell incorporated into the stack. PostgreSQL would be an option, since they could fork it (and the PostgreSQL team not having heard anything is irrelevant to an extent, since it's BSD-licensed). I think we can sit back and see what happens pretty safely. They're certainly not going to make things incompatible with Oracle for a back-end, but I'm sure they'd like to offer a cheap solution since they're obviously trying to lower-cost solutions in order to stay alive.
What's the status of compatibility with native Java bits with Ingres? Oracle has obviously bitten on the Java-compatibility of everything, but I think that anything Sun would want to do DB-wise would keep Java squarely in the mix.
bad for Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
Very few people in the enterprise world trust MySQL or PostgreSQL for anything other then web apps so this isn't going to win Sun any new business.
Oracle is an amazingly vindictive company, they will put the screws to Sun if they feel even slightly threatened. This is bad for Open Source because it just gives IT managers one more reason to replace Unix based systems with WinNT. Convincing your boss to move from Unix based commercial OS to Linux or BSD is a lot easier then trying to get Linux or BSD into a Windows shop. So in the end this will be bad for Open Source.
Makes sense - here's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is why: Oracle is now officially pushing linux on its customer base (they are slowing moving Oracle Hosting Services (OHS) over to a Linux based service. IBM is removing support for Solaris (Domino, Websphere, DB2). And Checkpoint is pushing Linux appliance servers. And so Sun is seeing an assult from all quarters.
In fact most people buy Oracle per CPU (typically $50K per CPU). Those running a machine with AMD Opterons running 64 bit Suse Linux and Oracle can expect to see a 4x improvement in performance per dollar of Oracle licensing fees. PowerPC also outperform Sun machines - and so many Banks are switching to AIX to reduce Oracle licensing fees.
What does that leave for Sun? To move up the value chain and start selling a system with a database integrated right into the OS. Sun will want a database that they can control though - so I bet the relationship with CA Ingris will sour (joint ventures almost never work) and they will switch to supporting Postgresql or another database they can dominate and buy up most of the developers.
The database in question is... (Score:4, Interesting)
The database in question is probably a database originally created by a Norwegien company called Clustra. This company was acquired by Sun 2 or 3 years ago. Clustra built a distributed database system that was seen by Sun to be a good fit for Sun's J2EE platform.
If it's true that this database is being offered as an open source product, it could be very interesting because it's a very good database from what I hear.
Re:Ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh, Sun is the largest single commercial donator of source under GPL dwarfing IBM, SGI, HP and all the other commercial entities involved in GPL by a wide margin.
Just for laughs and to illustrate how risable your point is at the last count more of the Red Hat distribution had been donated by Sun than any other commercial entiry including Red Hat.
The more I read OpenSource (really Linux) advocates flaming Sun for some imagined misdemeanor or other the more I tend to conclude that Sun has been remarkably forbearing with the community as a whole and that if Sun have been a bit rude on occasions they have been rather less rude then the community right royally deserves.
Lets face it if you were to single out one major commercial player who has almost single handed made it possible for Linux ot exist its actually not IBM, SGI, HP but Sun. They were largely responsible for the creation of the commercial UNIX market, they were almost exclusively responsible for insisting on published standards, API's etc and they have made huge donations to the basic plumbing of Linux.
Sadly these hugely worthy but clearly boring activities are nothing compared to the IBM/HP/SGI eye candy which has little to do with fostering open standards and OpenSource and everything to do with moving tin, SW and services.
Sure they are abrasive but lets face it in the face of the abuse they have received I would be pissed as hell as well, talk about biting the hand that feeds.
Parent
Re:Ahem (Score:3, Insightful)
Its both. I would work for Sun under almost any conditions they set forth as long as I was paid a decent salary. From what I hear and know of Sun culture, its awesome. A company really run by geeks, which hasn't belped them in the marketing department, but has allowed them to do so kickin' work.
Is Sun's passive aggressive behavior, or other companies open pus
Re:Ahem (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, so you have never heard of OpenOffice just the largest single donation of source under GPL (made by Sun) and Sun still continues to be by far in away the largest contributor with something like 100 full time staff.
Heard of gnome Sun is heavily involved in Gnome. They have made big donations to Apache, Mozilla and a whole rang
Re:Ahem (Score:5, Insightful)
So you can't use CDDL code in Linux. So what? You can't use GPL code in FreeBSD. I don't hear the FreeBSD folks claiming that Linus is out to destroy FreeBSD.
And what's this about "denies its use by most of the open source world"? What FUD! You can use it all you damn well like. You just can't mingle it with GPL code and distribute the result.
You can, however, mingle CDDL code with BSD code and distribute the result.
Get some perspective. It's free. It's open source. Yes, the license is intentionally incompatible with the GPL. You'll get over it. You're no worse off than you were before.
Parent
Re:Ahem (Score:3, Insightful)
I also object to this FUD that Sun is out to destroy Linux. There is an amazing amount of badwill on Slashdot towards Sun.
Bruce Perens compared the new CDDL licence to Sun "holding a gun" to the heads of the Linux community and "asking them to be grateful for it". WTF? No one is forcing the Linux community to use this database or the patents previously discussed. It is Suns products, they can do w
Re:Ahem (Score:3, Interesting)
Keep using your GPL software.
It really goes on my nerves to see people claim that GPL is the only "free" license?
CDDL? Big deal - download the software and use it - you never have to pay a single cent to Sun.
The point here is that
a) As the fucking article said, Sun's fed up with giving Oracle 50% of every DB deal they close while Oracle constantly competes with their application server platform
and
b) Lack of their "own" database is deterimental to Sun's utility strategy (presumably even IB
Re:This karma whoring disgusts me (Score:3, Funny)