[H-GEN] Databases, application development & licensing restrictions of open source software

[Arjen Lentz]

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Hi Patrick,

On Fri, 2002-11-01 at 09:22, Patrick Nichols wrote:
> I've interested the Powers That Be in developing a web based database
> system to replace the current paper based system/excel spreadsheet system
> for maintaining the different registers (job/client/drawing/etc..) and
> associated data for our office.  At the moment this is keen but cautious
> interest.
> 
> What I've suggested is developing a php frontend to a database to store
> and link this data making it available on our intranet.  I also suggested
> the possibility of online timesheets and linking to our current
> billing/accounting/costs management system (this software is a custom
> built application by others - I have no other details, I don't know
> whether we own the source or just the application).
> 
> What effect does using open source software have on our ability to develop
> our custom web based application in specific regards to licensing.

MySQL has dual licensing: if the GPL license fits your needs then you
can use it for free, otherwise you can purchase a commercial license for
a few hundred dollars per server installation (regardless of CPUs or #
of users).
If you're unsure whether your particular situation fits within GPL, drop
me a line detailing the case and I'll try to answer it for you.

While MySQL is Open Source, it is developed and supported by a
commercial company where you can also purchase services such as support,
training and consulting. Depending on your requirements, this may be
important to your "the powers that be" (as in: OpenSource does not equal
"unsupported" ;-).


PostgreSQL has a Berkeley style license, so as others have already noted
you can pretty much do what you like. For support and other services you
can shop around.


> And on a final note, which freely available database will fit the bill in
> terms of licensing, scalability and performance.

Looking within this realm, you'll probably pick between MySQL
(www.mysql.com) and PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org)

Both scale well, given the right knowledge and design. So it all depends
on what you want to do and what knowledge your company has. There is no
single answer.
As an example, PostgreSQL is being used by some domain name registrars
(that's pretty big stuff!), while Yahoo!Finance and various
telecommunication companies rely on MySQL. This clearly proves that both
will scale both in terms of database size as well as concurrency.

It's just that scaling is more an issue of proper design and tuning
rather than "throwing more hardware at the problem", and that is why
many people think "oh it won't scale" when they run into trouble with a
particular setup. RDBMS are complex things. They can be quite easy to
set up and use the basics, but it takes years to gain experience.

Hope this helps!


Regards,
Arjen.

-- 
MySQL Training in Sydney: 9-13 Dec 2002, http://www.mysql.com/training/
Purchase Training, Support, Licenses @ https://order.mysql.com/?marl
   __  ___     ___ ____  __
  /  |/  /_ __/ __/ __ \/ /    Mr. Arjen G. Lentz <arjen at mysql.com>
 / /|_/ / // /\ \/ /_/ / /__   MySQL AB, Technical Writer, Trainer
/_/  /_/\_, /___/\___\_\___/   Brisbane, QLD Australia
       <___/   www.mysql.com

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