Re: What so special about PostgreSQL and other RDBMS?

quirk_at_syntac.net (Quirk) wrote in message news:<4e20d3f.0405110058.684e5968_at_posting.google.com>...
> "Volker Hetzer" <volker.hetzer_at_ieee.org> wrote in message news:<c7o8i3$3bk$1_at_nntp.fujitsu-siemens.com>...
>

> > > Yes, you have the right to be overcharged for work that may or may not
> > > not suit your needs by only _one_ vendor, and no right to go elsewhere
> > > when they fail, ignore you outright, stop supporting your application
> > > or vanish from the face of the earth. Have you actually read your
> > > contract or software licence?
> > Of course. See the end of this posting.
>
> > > It only protects the vendor, not you.
> > I've read the licence and done even more: I've used the software and tested the contract.
>
> Realy, care to quote the part of the Contract that Gaurantees you any
> rights?
>
> Instead, what you will find is that the contracts insists that the
> Software is not gauranteed to be usefull for any particilar purpose,
> and that they deny all responsibilitty for it to the extent possible
> by law.
>
> By "tested the contarct" what you mean is you agreed to pay them
> completely on their terms and where satisified with the results they
> chose to give you.
>
> Have you tested alternatives?
>

...

> > > > I don't *want* to create my own development
> > > > team competing with the original one. I don't want to merge my change back
> > > > into their code with every new release! I don't want to develop code and
> > > > then have them decide whether they condescend to incorporate it or not! I
> > > > want the authors of the software to do the coding based on what I'm willing
> > > > to pay for!
> > >
> > > You are dependent on their licence
>
> > I'm dependent on the author's licence regardless of which database I use.
>
> Yes, which is why you should choose one that give you a perpetual
> right to the source code, otherwise you are locked into a dependancy
> that may prove fatal to your application.
>
> > It's just that some licences give me the illusion of being able to do
> > something while mainly giving me in reality the ability to shoot myself in
> > the foot or paying someone else to shoot me in the foot.
>
> Unsubstantiated bunk, if you have the source code, it is not magic to
> fix it, or extend it, just normal progamming. Simple calling something
> an illusion does not explain why you condsider it impossible to
> actually change a program. Perhaps you should consider a different
> line of work.

As someone who has profited greatly from this, I must point out that he is correct. I've profited both from the fact that during and after the lawsuit there is a great, _and artificially created_, shortage of technical talent, and the fact that companies will indeed shoot themselves in the foot by automating existing processes rather than reengineering them, if having the source code allows them to do so. And when it gets obsolete and no young 'uns want to deal with it, that's when the big bucks begin.

...

>
> As I said, my comments where ment *FOR DEVELOPERS* that is those who
> are developing *NEW* appliciations, and my advice is simple enough,
> despite your contortions: If your application is important to you, do
> not engineer a dependency on code you do not have access to.

New or old, they get old or they die horribly. Until there is some desire in the industry for stability over time, this is a red herring.

>
> > anyone else is going to make a worse job than
> > them. So, I get the best support when I'm paying them and no one else.
>
> More unsubstantiated bunk, first of all, in many cases you can hire
> the original developers, regardless of your right to the source code,
> secondly, by hiring the "Copyright Holders" you *ARE NOT NECESSARLIY
> HIRING THE DEVELEORS*, who may not even be with the company anymore,
> in fact you are often hiring some peon who they scooped of the
> consulting market 5 minutes before sending him to your office as an
> certified solutions prodiver or whatever idiotic buzzword whey have
> for their unskilled labour.

Make buckets o' cash following them, too.

>
> And finaly, it is a falalcy to say that someone will do a worse job
> simply because they are not the original developer.

Not necessarily. I've seen plenty of "design drift," especially over time when the newbies may not have the context of the original developers, and the managers feel the need to compete with completely different things from competitors. There is also the classic case of developers going from place to place because they are only interested in new stuff, so follow-on developers miss a lot of the organizational wisdom.

...

> In anycase, I am not arguing agianst using Oracle, as I said, if
> Oracle suits your needs and you think it's worth the money, use it,
> however, my advice is that if you do develop an application, write
> your code in such a way that you do not depend on Oracle, but can
> easily switch it over the the greatest extent possible.

Well, this is double-edged. As someone who has spent a great deal of the last couple of decades dealing with heterogenousity, I can state with some confidence that the lowest-common-denominator approach will make it very easy for the competition to eat your lunch after you've created their market. I think SAP has seen this and that is why they are so hot on controlling mysql, and I think Oracle has seen this and that is why they are so hot on controlling peoplesoft (they scheduled the court date for September IIRC?), and I think MS has seen this, and I think everyone else has seen that MS has seen this, and all the low to midrange enterprise app competition are already going under. Niche markets excepted, but perhaps even more sensitive to LCD. ...

> This is just stupid, elegnt coding is hardly as unatainable an ideal
> as you seem to be conviced, in fact in this specific case it's a
> simply matter of using a standard wrapper function throughtout your
> aplication to access your data rather than using proprietary bindings
> throughout your application, if your application is sufficently
> complicated, perhaps a data abstaction object might be usefull for
> this function, perhaps not, if you use any non standard features of
> your database server, then write some additional functions as wrappers
> for these. It is anything but rocket science.

If you use non-standard features, your wrapper has to emulate it for those db's that don't have it. This may well be rocket science you are reinventing. I've seen it be a problem over and over.

...
>
> > > > > If you have the source code, you are the developer,
>
> > > > Wrong. I am the user, t.
> > >
> > > Oh, well then I guess we have nothing further to discuss, my comments
> > > here where meant for actual developers.
>
> > So, oracle people should further develop oracle and mysql people
> > mysql. Did I get this right?
>
> No, that's not right, that's not even wrong.
>
> (with applogies to Wolfgang Pauli)
>
> Application developers should avoid locking themselves in to external
> dependencies, either by not using products to which they have no right
> to the source code, or abstracting access when they do use such
> products. Simple.
>
> And having right to the source code does not mean that the program is
> 'open source,' as you can purchace such a right for propretary code,
> as is common for libraries.
>
> Of course, when the program _is_ open source, you are guaranteed that
> right.

OK, give me the source to the Redhat 5 tape driver.

...

>
> > "Assistance with my SRs 24 hours per day, 7days a week". Practically I
> > usually get two or three guys working on a typical SR of mine, depending on
> > how log it takes. Without a contract I'd get a 'buzz off, I'm doing my exams > this month'.

ROTFL!
>
> "Assitance" only means that they will provide someone whose time they
> can bill you for, not that anything will be accomplished. And you
> discredit yourself by attemping the fallacy that the only way to have
> access to an applications source code is to hire some one who is doing
> exams. Many large companies, and profesional develpoers provide source
> licences and/or support open source products, including the largest
> computer company in the world, IBM.

It's so funny, because I've heard it. And at one time, I almost actually said it. I did once say something like "I'm not coming in while my wife is having a baby merely because your 'lead dba' can't follow instructions to load a test database."

jg

--
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