IBM Invests In MySQL/Oracle Competitor

stoolpigeon writes "IBM has made a move to support open source RDBMS PostgreSQL by investing in EnterpriseDB, a company that supports PostgreSQL as well as selling their own proprietary extensions to the database product. IBM participated in a $10 million funding round, though the article doesn't say how much they invested. In the past EnterpriseDB has primarily advertised itself as an Oracle competitor, though the article says, 'Derek Rodner, EnterpriseDB's director of product strategy, explained that Postgres Plus 8.3 also adds in new application quick starts which are supposed to help with installation issues. They will also help in EnterpriseDB's battle against MySQL for open source database supremacy.'"

MySQL databae supremacy

[scorp1us]

Now there's an oxymoron!

MySQL, while it has come a long way, still has a ways to go to rival PostgresSQL, technically speaking. By the time you enable all the atomicity, and PostgreSQL feature set, you arrive at worse-than PostgreSQL performance.

MySQL, while it has come a long way, still has a ways to go to rival PostgresSQL, legally speaking. PostgreSQL is BSD. MySQL is anything but. Sure, the community edition is free, but it cannot be used with commercial software. In fact, there's a special "open source exception" to the license. That's not really open source. Open Source would never make you pay server licensing fees for use in commercial software, it would only make you distribute your source at worst.

Interesting...

[jonaskoelker]

Here's a few random thoughts:

Having recently seen Sun buy MySQL, this looks a lot like a "me too"-move. That's not to say that it doesn't make business sense.

Last I checked, IBM makes its money from two things: hardware and support. Note that software is not one of them; the software is (to them) merely what enables them to sell their bread and butter. It's also costing them money to develop and maintain software that drives sales.

That's why they've invested money in Linux, and that's why they're investing money in Postgres: offering software with a good track record and a good reputation drives sales better, and cost is driven down as the software is open source.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[chromatic]

What suggests to you that the terms "open source" and "commercial" are antonyms?

Still waiting for a decent GUI

[bogaboga]

I love all these Open Source databases but what troubles me most is the absence of a decent [fully] programmable GUI to "slap" onto the actual database back-end. I would like readers to think of Access which is on top of Microsoft's jet database engine. It works and works beautifully but I loath Microsoft's products.

Can one tell me why we (in the open source world), do not have a single product that competes with Access in terms of functionality, ease of use and ease of programming business logic?

Re:Interesting...

[Cosmic Debris]

No money to be made on software, eh? Don't tell Steve Mills that. He's been working under the assumption that IBM is one of the world's largest software companies and that it's quite profitable, thank you.

I know this for a fact. And btw, when did you last check your figures? Take a look at IBM's 2007 annual statement and get back to me.

Since your thoughts are random, I'll assume you're using Microsoft's Random Number Generator.

Re:EnterpriseDB also has Cloud Database service

[TheLink]

Yeah, if I'm the owner of a company and not just some "Slash and Burn" CEO, I wouldn't want to have my core assets hostage to some third party _company_.

Having it in the hands of a trusted _person_ is different. If that person works for a different company, it's harder to ensure it's always that same trusted person who manages it.

Whereas if that trusted person works for you and the assets are in your company, it's a bit easier eh?

Re:Still waiting for a decent GUI

[timmarhy]

it's simple. no one in the open source world is dumb enough to WANT to be known as the access db of the open source world.

postgresql has a couple of brillant gui tools that hold their own easily against sql server managment 2005.

Re:Still waiting for a decent GUI

[InlawBiker]

Maybe because nobody wants to complain about a missing GUI when the product is free. But anyway I've found 4 GUIs for Postgresql in a quick search, not counting Navicat. I've never used it but it looks very nice. I've used PG Admin, which is great for simple work. Most of these are better than Access, which is just a toy, but not as good as Microsoft's query analyzer (now called "server management studio" I believe).

I have specialized in database applications with a web front-end for a while now. While they can't touch Oracle yet (or even MS SQL), Postgresql and MySQL are rapidly improving, and beat some of the expensive commercial offerings of not too long ago. A lot of medium-sized applications can exist just fine on either one. Eventually they will find the limitations of either system too limiting and switch, but for starting up they are both good back ends. With an expert at the helm, a serious application running either MySql or Postgresql is very possible.

At the rate they're improving MS and Oracle should be very concerned. IBM and Sun throwing serious money into the mix is a very interesting development.

Commercial open source software

[Per Abrahamsen]

That's not really open source.

It is open source, according to the people who invented the term.

Open Source would never make you pay server licensing fees for use in commercial software, it would only make you distribute your source at worst.

MySQL doesn't make you pay a license fee in commercial software, if you distribute your software under an open source (as defined by the people who invented the term) license. Like, e.g., Sun does with their very commercial MySQL product.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[Omnifarious]

MySQL, while it has come a long way, still has a ways to go to rival PostgresSQL, legally speaking. PostgreSQL is BSD. MySQL is anything but. Sure, the community edition is free, but it cannot be used with commercial software. In fact, there's a special "open source exception" to the license. That's not really open source. Open Source would never make you pay server licensing fees for use in commercial software, it would only make you distribute your source at worst.

This is a blatant distortion bordering on an outright lie.

MySQL community edition is licensed under the GNU GPL (version 2 even) and may be used inside any random commercial entity without having to distribute anything. And if you want to use MySQL in commercial software you may use it as long as you distribute source code for MySQL and any changes you have made to it.

It is true that the interface libraries are also covered by the GPL. But this can be gotten around easily enough by writing your own interface libraries, or having a GPLed thunk which speaks a proprietary protocol to your proprietary application and then uses the MySQL GPLed interface layer to talk to MySQL.

Personally, I consider PostgresSQL's license to be less free, and I'm disappointed in IBM for supporting it in any way. Ultimately IBM is throwing away their money by doing this. The article even tells you why PostgresSQL's license is less free. The company distributes proprietary extensions to PostgresSQL. They've essentially forked the code. If their proprietary extensions even become widely accepted and relied upon they have essentially rendered PostgresSQL no longer Free Software.

I'm surprised that IBM would be throwing away money on such a thing. They are essentially encouraging the development of another little monopolistic company making secret software that could ultimately hurt them very badly.

Re:db2...

[firefly4f4]

Why isn't this a competitor of db2?

For the same reason PostgreSQL and MySQL aren't really competitors to Oracle.

There might be SOME crossover, but one database system (MySQL, PostgreSQL) is aimed at user performing simpler tasks (web forums, home users) which don't necessarily need all the features of the larger products (transactions, large numbers of simultaneous users, data integrity checking), whereas the other (DB2, Oracle) is aimed at business users who require those full-fledged features.

Now, I'm not saying that PostgreSQL and MySQL don't provide some of the features, but people will choose what best suits their needs. You won't see banks running PostgreSQL/MySQL on for their financial transactions, just like you most likely won't see DB2/Oracle running as the backend of your (run-of-the-mill) web forum.

Disclaimer: I work for IBM. These thoughts are my own, and may not represent those of the company.

20% revenue, 40% profit

[Per Abrahamsen]

The software division of IBM accounts for 20% of their revenue, and 40% of their profit.

See http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2007/md_4rco.shtml [ibm.com]

Key applications are WebSphere, "Information Management" (db2?), Lotus, Tivoli, Rational, and operating systems.

Some of this is probably tied to the success of their hardware and service departments, I doubt many people buy IBM operating systems (2% of their total revenue, 12% of their software revenue) without IBM hardware.

But the non-disclosed revenue from Rational is probably pretty much standalone.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[Spy der Mann]

It is true that the interface libraries are also covered by the GPL. But this can be gotten around easily enough by writing your own interface libraries

Yeah sure... we all do that (/sarcasm).

Postgres: Best Intro of All Worlds

[Doc Ruby]

IBM buying into Postgres through EnterpriseDB is clearly a response to Sun's buying into MySQL. But what's really exciting about the move is that Sun also bought into Postgres, shipping it with Solaris 10 and integrating it with its Java App Server, as an entry-level database. Since Sun is also supporting and bundling MySQL (and therefore using it to drive sales of Sun machines), tools for porting between Postgres and MySQL are likely in the works.

Now IBM will follow suit, probably offering Postgres as an intro to selling its DB2 database, which will mean IBM tools for upgrading from Postgres to DB2. Meanwhile, EnterpriseDB already offers tools to port Oracle apps to Postgres.

The next move will probably come from Oracle. To continue the head-to-head competition, Oracle will probably offer tools for porting Postgres (and maybe MySQL) apps to Oracle. It's surprising that Oracle didn't buy a Postgres or MySQL company before Sun or IBM got them, but maybe that's why Sun bought one of each: to keep them from Oracle. Though Oracle did buy the InnoDB corp that makes the MySQL engine with serious DB features, and SleepyCat, the BerkeleyDB corp.

So as the dust settles, there could finally be a grand unification at work. IBM, Sun and Oracle each have incentive and in-house teams for producing tools to port between Postgres, MySQL and their proprietary high-end RDBMS'es. And since the lower-end (though Postgres competes well with them all) DBs are all open source, there is a good chance the upgrades will be available for freely porting among all of them.

The age of database lockin might finally be falling behind us. We might finally be free to use whichever DB is best for the job today, not determined by which DB was best for some other job yesterday.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[MrNaz]

why is MySQL still that default database for hosted websites, and why do most open source web applications that I've looked at recommend a LAMP/WAMP stack?

Inertia.

Incidentally, you do know that Slashdot runs on MySQL don't you?

Yes, which is why they need to do such a large number of crazy voodoo tricks to scale.

Re:Interesting...

[khakipuce]

Not only did Sun buy MySQL, Oracle is after BEA (Weblogic, amongst other things). Now, from a Java perspective, Sun used to be the langauge provider, Oracle seemed to have become the de-facto database to run heavy weight Java applications against and IBM Websphere, or BEA Weblogic was the app server.

I just wonder if these guys are all about to explode the Java App server space (watch out for shrapnel), and try to drive customers down either:
Sun - Glassfish, MySQL
Oracle - Weblogic, Oracle database
IBM - Websphere, PostgreSQL

What is more concerning is that it seems likely that such fragmentation will cause non-technical management to run for cover under .NET

BTW whilst Sun has Solaris and IBM has AIX they all have Linux on which to run, and I guess that Oracle just isn't bothered about getting into hardware.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[GooberToo]

This used to be true but no longer. The most recent release series of PostgreSQL stomps MySQL in almost every area of performance. I say, "almost" because it's possible some corner cases still exist. Now that PostgreSQL properly (native binaries vs Cygwin and fast/east installation) supports Windows, only a fool would use PostgreSQL for new projects.

MySQL uses lots of non-ANSI SQL, teaching poor SQL habits. MySQL is feature poor compared to PostgreSQL, requiring involved work arounds to do what is easy in most other RDBMs. PostgreSQL's performance now completely rocks across the performance and scalability (PostgreSQL always was ahead here) spectrum.

The only thing preventing MySQL users from migrating to a superior platform is poor, non-ANSI SQL learned from using a crappy MySQL platform in the first place.

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[MrMunkey]

The only feature that has been keeping me from using PostgreSQL in work projects is replication. My company requires that there be multiple backups at all times, and MySQL's replication has done a pretty decent job (mysqldump -u user -p -master-data -databases db1 db2 -create-options > file.sql allows me to create a new slave quite easily). I do know there are projects out there, but they're just not quite ready yet: http://edoceo.com/liber/db-postgresql-replication [edoceo.com]

Feel free to let me know if there's another way to do this, because foreign keys would be great :)

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[portnoy]

And yet, I can take the PostgreSQL code, create some new extensions under the GPL, and then license the result as a GPL work. So, um, how again is the BSD license less free than GPL, if I can create a GPL'd work from it?

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[h3]

Serendipity [s9y.org] supports Postgres and has for a long time (though I can't say for certain that it did from birth). Which is why I use it. As with other projects of this nature (Drupal comes to mind), though the core supports Postgres quite well, 3rd party plugins sometimes fall into MySQL-only habits, but that hasn't been too problematic for me.

Frankly, in this day and age, I'm leery of projects that are written to MySQL specifically. To me, it smacks of amateurdom: if you don't know enough to use an abstraction layer (of which there are jillions of options), what does that say about the quality of your code as a whole?

Re:MySQL databae supremacy

[DragonWriter]

The GPL is more free because it preserves freedom. The BSD license is less free because it allows that freedom to be taken away.

So, the GPL is "more free" because it gives the licensee less freedom, and imposes more of the licensor's ideology on the licensee while the BSDL is "less free" because it gives the licensee more freedom, and imposes less of the licensor's ideology on the licensee.