Re: Open Source Oracle?

"Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote:
>
> Well, oddly enough, 85%+ of users still do. Because it's slick, it's
> smooth, it works (mostly). And everyone else is using it. And (in theory
> at least) if anything goes wrong, there's a bloody great software company
> that will help me sort it out.
>
> It might help, too, that OpenOffice is not the world's most stable
> software, and lacks certain key bits of functionality, for some users
> (ie, me!) at least.
>
> So the same would be true for OpenOracle vs. Oracle. If I need RAC, Data
> Guard, Workspace Manager or Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespaces, I
> would buy Oracle. The mere existence of a free version that lacks these
> crucial features wouldn't stop me paying Oracle hard cash,

Right. I agree that people that seriously need Oracle are going to buy Oracle. WRT them, open sourcing old stuff is neither gain nor lose.

>
> If all I needed was a multi-versioning, transactional database that did
> the basics, OpenOracle would be a good place to start. But, being (let us
> imagine) based on Oracle version 7 code, there are a good lot of bugs to
> live with, so even then I might feel the need to shell out for the paid
> version.

Or move to a different free DBMS not named "Oracle" :)

>
> The availability of a free version, in short, does not preclude the
> existence of the paid-for version. And whilst Oracle might lose out on
> the small-time operators and installations, they might take the
> opportunity to enhance their large-scale operations... and charge a
> (further!) premium for doing so... so there's money in it for them, too.

I don't see how open-sourcing old code would aid in the endeavor to enhance their large-scale operations. It pretty much seems like two independent things.

> Alternatively, consider that little companies which start with freebie
> software have a habit of growing up to be big-ish companies that can pay
> good money for their software.

Well, some fairly small percentage of them do.

> Wouldn't it be a good idea to "infect" the
> minds of these sorts of people in the early, el-cheapo days, and clean up
> when the hard cash starts being passed around?

If they really need Oracle1 10g, they will buy it, regardless of what they previously used. If they only kind-of-sort-of need Oracle 10g, then Oracle would only clean up if that growing company had a good deal of loyalty to Oracle. I would contend that companies like that are the kinds of companies that would have been willing to pay in the first place, even when they were small.

Xho

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