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Re: What so special about PostgreSQL and other RDBMS?

From: Volker Hetzer <volker.hetzer_at_ieee.org>
Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 17:36:52 +0200
Message-ID: <c7o7il$u0k$1@nntp.fujitsu-siemens.com>

"Quirk" <quirk_at_syntac.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:4e20d3f.0405100025.fd32875_at_posting.google.com...
> edwardh_at_highstream.net (Edward Lloyd Hillman) wrote in message news:<109o67992jbs0c1_at_news.supernews.com>...
>
> > > You have no such right, ever, the only right you _can_ have is the
> > > right to modify it yourself or contract someone to do it. Please read
> > > your licence.
> >
> >
> > Got a news flash for ya...
>
> Oh boy, it's Seseme Street News, OK Kermit, keep talking.
>
> > If you have a maintenance contract with a vendor and something of
> > theirs' is broken, they must fix it if you need it.
>
> Perhaps, but when the product in question is proprietary you have no
> recourse when they fail, because no one else has any right to modify
> the source code.

I have, at most, the right to sue them, at least, the right to cancel the contract which hurts them way more than if I go to a postgres developer and tell him I'm not interested any more. So, unlike open source developers, they actually have an interest in doing something.

>
> When you have a right to the source code you can sign such a contarct
> with any firm you like, and fire their ass and hire another when they
> fail.

But it doesn't make sense to use any other firm than the guys who wrote it. See my other postings and the reply about division of labour. You might also read up on Maos Great Leap Forward and north coreas policy of doing everything themselves.

>
> > I know this
> > because it happend to us recently at work. We found something broken
> > it a version of a prticular commercial RDBMS that had been fixed in a
> > later release, but due to customer requirements we cannot yet upgrade
> > to that version (i.e., the customer is unwilling to pay for it at this
> > time). The vendor didn't want to fix it but because the customer is
> > paying them beaucoup bucks for a maintance contract we demanded that
> > they do so. They did and supplied us with the necessary patch.
>
> I'm not sure what this example is supposed to illustrate. The vendor
> failed to fix the bug originaly and ony did so under dures,
The point was that contracts work.

> which only
> shows how vulnerable you where to begin with,
Why was he vulnerable if he had a contract that required the vendor to work?

> if you had the right to
> say 'OK, were going to fire you and give someone else the contract'
> they would have fixed your bug pronto with no back talk.
Maybe, but in case of open source software they'd say 'Good luck working into our source code, see you in two years'.

> > The only way you can get that kind of support is with a maintance
> > contract. With Open Source we'd have had to spend many extra
> > man-hours trying to find where the problem was and how to fix it
> > without breaking anything else.
>
> Why? You could have the exact same contarct with a vendor supporting
> an open source product,

Yes, but then it would cost like any other product, right?

> or negotiate access to source for the vendors
> product, the only difference being that you then have leverage.
The access to the source means nothing, see above.

> Or
> failing that, your application could have been designed to to give you
> alternatives,

Right. And the customer throws away years of experience with one db system and pulls a finished, reliable and maintainable alternative installation out of the hat. Including people who have been trained on it. In what way is a change from oracle to db2 easier than a change from postgresql to mysql?

>
> You programmed yourself into a corner, and are now trying to use your
> folly, which nearly cost you a customer, as a positive example.
> Interesting.
>
> It is people like you that warm the hearts of confidence men
> everywhere.
>
> > And we didn't hace the time to fool
> > with such nonsense as this occurred in a production application that
> > had to be up 24x7x365.
>
> But you put yourself in a position were you may have been unable you
> support your own customer _AT_ALL_ except for the good graces of your
> vendor.

Why? He doesn't support the db. The db vendor does that. All he has to do is to show that it's othe db's fault, at which point his customer's maintenance contract with the db vendor kicks in. Normal business practice.

> I pitty your customers if they really do expect to get
> 24x7x365 under such an arrangement.

Oh, they do get it. Because it's in the contract, you know?

Greetings!
Volker Received on Mon May 10 2004 - 10:36:52 CDT

Original text of this message

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