The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

INGRESS opensourced

http://www3.ca.com/Press/pressrelease.asp?CID=59764

I am not sure of the entire details. But if true, this is a knockout punch to proprietory databases of smaller companies like Sybase and a huge punch to Oracle/Microsoft and most importantly MySQL.

Celko had said that Ingress had the most impressive optimizer among all database technologies as it used Artificial Intelligence.

If Celko is to be believed , Ingress is now the most advanced open source database.

MYSQL used to be dismissed by the likes of Oracle- although it has made tremendous strides. This is because it lacks several basic SQL Support. I do not think Ingress lacks such support.

Can someone who uses Ingress comment on it please?

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

<<If Celko is to be believed , Ingress is now the most advanced open source database.>>

Rereading my message, Celko did not say that. I was extrapolating it from the earlier statement.

Thanks.

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

There are already a few sql-compliant rdms' available( i.e. postgresql, interbase/firebird, sapdb) and still mySQL is the most used system.

Unless porting your project to Ingres involves the press of one button, and the advantages are absolutely overwhelming I see no real uptake of this system in the next few years.

Jan Oosting
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Open Source... where crappy old software that nobody cares about anymore goes to die.

MrFancypants
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

MySQL = Access for linux weenies.

c:\
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Actually I think it's great that no longer supported software is going Open Source. It makes a lot of sense and makes our job (as developers) easier when a client says:

"I'm using crazy application X, but I want to convert to Y, how can I do it!?"

Now I don't have to try to track down the license, application, etc.

KC
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

"Open Source... where crappy old software that nobody cares about anymore goes to die. "

What? Microsoft is going Open Source???

Anony Coward
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Would IBM open source DB2?
Would Microsoft open source SQL Server?
Would Oracle open source Oracle?

Why not, because these are money makers for the owner. CA is a collection of has been software. Some of it, particularly the main frame stuf,f makes them a killing because when you are the only provider and you've got a customer locked in, well, it get's pricey.

Ingress on the other hand is not much used and probably isn't worth the space the information takes on their website to store. Answer, open source it. It looks like we are behind the feel good movement making a real contribution. The contribution is real in that is of value to the community, but it really cost nothing to CA to do.

c:\
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

CA - Where software goes to die.

.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Karthik this is completely off topic but are you using open source software at your company? To what capacity do you or your company use open source software? If you can list the major packages that'd be great. Do you work for an open source company? Just curious, thanks.

Li-fan Chen
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Obviously, if i work for an open source company, i would not be so unethical to post it here. !!

I dont decide the software i use in my company !

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Since MS licenced the original source of SQL Server from Sybase I doubt they could make it open source even if they wanted to.

INGRES was an industrial strength database engine a long time ago, I've no idea if the CA version has kept up. INGRES was originally developed in the 70's and was released under the BSD licence and was later overhauled by POSTGRES.

POSTGRES is known for being a pig to handle, but efficient in some applications.

CA's Ingres was developed on their own fork from the original Berkeley source, just as Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, etc, etc were.

This shows both the strength of open source licences and their sometimes weakness. Its certainly true to say that if Ingres had not been picked up by all the major developers (or they became major by so using it), except IBM that the database engine market today would be completely different.

Whether pointer based architectures created by people like MDBS Inc would have had an easier and clearer market to pursue can't really be judged. But if Lafayette University, Indiana, had released the same level of research material in the early 80's as became commercially accessible from Berkeley I think database development would have developed far faster and we'd be in some amazing territory.

Simon Lucy
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

<<Lafayette University, Indiana>>

You mean Purdue ;-). I am from there

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Karthik man, I was getting worried about you. You haven't predicted the demise of Microsoft in almost a week. Have you been under the weather?

Anyway, glad to see you're feeling better.

Philo

Philo
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

> Obviously, if i work for an open source company, i would not be so unethical to post it here. !!

Please don't do anything against the policy of your company, I wouldn't ask you to do that. However, whatever is behind the firewall or port 80/443, let's start with that. Omit the name of your email client and we'll call it even :-) That's 90% of the attack point for hackers :-)

> I dont decide the software i use in my company !
*nod* So what are you guys forced to use? What do you use at home?

Li-fan Chen
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

<<Please don't do anything against the policy of your company, I wouldn't ask you to do that. However, whatever is behind the firewall or port 80/443, let's start with that. Omit the name of your email client and we'll call it even :-) That's 90% of the attack point for hackers :-)>>

Well. I did not understand this

> I dont decide the software i use in my company !
*nod* So what are you guys forced to use? What do you use at home?

Lot fo things. Oracle, Windows etc. etc.

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

<<Karthik man, I was getting worried about you. You haven't predicted the demise of Microsoft in almost a week. Have you been under the weather? >>

Thanks Philo. I mean, i deeply appreciate your concern. The weather in Dagobah is not to my taste and Master Yoda can a bit harsh sometimes.

But say, this was a reasonably serious post. What makes you think that i was bashing microsoft. I thought Ingress was or is among the biggies.

Thanks

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Karthik, Philo probably meant that when you said it was going to be a huge punch to Microsoft, you were doing your usual preaching of how Microsoft is going to disappear tomorrow.

Anyway, the transition has just started. For a product like Ingress the transition is going to be doubly difficult. Unless CA pays ex-developers to babysit the open source edition the OSS version of Ingres could be in for some trouble, transitions to OSS is not a walk in the park. If they do it well I am sure in 3 years it will be well worth it. I don't think the OSS world needs lots of mediocre DBs, it needs one single Oracle and a dozen specialized ones that can't be Oracle (for obvious reasons). Before Ingres or Inprise Firebird, everyone thought PostgreSQL was the best bet, even if it had to take 10 years. It's hard to say until 3 years from now what effect Ingres in the OSS world.

How many of you feel that it's a good chance we'll be using traditional RDBMS or OORDMBS for the next 20 years? If that's the trend I'd like to see one of the big linux backers pour some money into Postgres so that it's competitive in 5 years and useful for another 15.

Li-fan Chen
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

If I would contribute to the OSS DB world it would be SQLite. http://www.sqlite.org/

As it has a lot of potential to replace access and mysql based databases.

blaZ
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

"Before Ingres or Inprise Firebird, everyone thought PostgreSQL was the best bet, even if it had to take 10 years. It's hard to say until 3 years from now what effect Ingres in the OSS world."

You bring up a good point. The best bet is always changing. Oracle and the other industrial strength db vendors probably grin every time a new powerfull db is open sourced. More fragmentation. Now it will take even longer to get an Oracle killer.

SNT the evolution of RMS
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

DB2 is killing Oracle slowly. Apparently, internal figures have it that they are losing market share quite a bit- partly due to Ellisons arrogance.

Third part folks like Peoplesoft, Siebel, SAP now recommend DB2 for their customers. And IBM has cleverly encouraged them to go against Oracle. Same way it is using Novell and Red Hat to do the dirty work against microsoft. And the results have been splendid.

IBM is no longer the lazy fat ass it was long ago.

Karthik
Tuesday, May 25, 2004