Re: Comparison of DB2 and Oracle?

Mark Townsend <markbtownsend_at_comcast.net> wrote in message news:<417F735E.6080007_at_comcast.net>...
> michael newport wrote:
>
> >
> > Linux / Apache / PHP have taken off because they are reliable and OpenSource.
> > I predict the same for Ingres.
> >
>
> Linux, Apache and PHP are succesful because there is a strong developer
> and user community. Ingres doesn't have this, and making something
> OpenSource doesn't cause this community to automatically build.

That's an interesting perspective, Mark. I agree for linux (certainly my own interest in linux stemmed from getting away from windows together with unix bigotry - and now that new versions don't run [without a whole lot of work] on any of my half-dozen computers and are suffering from bloatware, I'm not so interested for my own sake).

Apache and PHP, on the other hand, I would argue, benefitted from having a "killer app," and some cluelessness from MS. Of course, now that I've argued it, I have to say linux also benefitted from the same, but subsequent to the developer interest. They all started because of the strong developer community, but success came later. For Apache, only a year later, taking over the high growth market that NCSA created, but later nonetheless.

>
> Linux in particular benefited from the focus companies like Oracle, IBM
> and others placed on it. The same level of focus is unlikely to happen
> for Ingres.

And so my interest in linux is now professional, rather than personal.  This is a good thing. But linux is only just now becoming successful in the db world. Some people might still consider it the next big thing. It's here, bleeding edge places are using it, but mainstream... maybe all those hp/solaris job ads reflect the forward-looking people leaving :-)

From my perspective, the only thing that can save Ingres is a killer app. And I think anyone writing anything new would choose something else (or db independence), unless some underemployed Ingres people brainstormed and got lucky.

jg

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