Morning

Morning

Morning

Good morning all - Dia dhaoibh go léir!

Morning

@Colin'tHart "SQL Server compatibility mode for Postgres." - this looks like a very interesting project. I know that Salesforce employed (note past tense) Tom Lane (a major PG player) to remove Oracle from their systems - they appear to have ceased these efforts. Salesforce is a pretty big player in the IT world and gave up apparently. I know that Amazon is an even bigger player, but I can't help questioning their motives in all this.

Do they want to become a major player in the RDBMS market - but they why the Apache licence? With PG code, they can create proprietary products (as many have). I also can't help wondering about the potential performance of such a system - translation layers &c. will cost RAM and CPU cycles. Having said that, many of those who run RDBMS systems don't make anything like full usage of all of their features.

Check out Markus Winand's site modern SQL where he stresses that SQL has moved on since 1992 (would you still run Windows 3.1? - sigh... fond memories...). From a personal perspective, I consulted for a company that ran the rail infrastructure of a large European country - they ran Oracle. First day on the job, I ran a query to look for FOREIGN KEYs so I could get some idea of the relationship between the tables - empty resultset!

I asked the head programmer about this (thinking I'd made a mistake in my query) and he said (with pride!!!) that there were no FKs and that Referential Integrity (RI) was enforced in app code and not by the db because they used a few servers and therefore couldn't rely on any specific feature - Ongres would be perfect for this! However, for shops relying heavily on T-SQL, the picture might (will?) be very different!

A few thoughts:

I suspect Amazon wants to save money on Microsoft licenses

Although I presume that cost is built-in to the rate

But more choices is never a bad thing for them to have

Maybe they also have some internal systems on SQL Server

Talking about Salesforce, they just bought Slack for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

@Colin'tHart 1) "Maybe they also have some internal systems on SQL Server" - quite possibly, but they started out on Oracle AIUI and then built their own infrastructure when Oracle wasn't up to the job - so (total guess) any SQL Server systems they might have are from suppliers to them? My big question is why the Apache licence? They could have done a MySQL GPL style release - use it if you want to, but if you make money, we make money or even kept it totally commercial - à la DynamoDB.

Hmm, difficult to make a GPL layer on top of a BSD-style-licensed product

@Vérace why not Apache?

Very interesting how both GPL and BSD-style licenses have promoted Open Source development in very different ways

Linux etc blossomed because everything had to be Open Source

Postgres etc has blossomed because commercial versions were possible

@Colin'tHart "Talking about Salesforce, they just bought Slack for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" - yeah, way too many $$$ IMHO - it's a decent enough product/interface, but 26Bn... nah, I don't think so. Just like I thought that Sun paying $1Bn for MySQL was ridiculous!

@Colin'tHart "difficult to make a GPL layer on top of a BSD-style-licensed product" - my understanding of the BSD licence is that you can basically do what you like with the code, except perhaps release it as Public Domain? You're allowed turn BSD-licenced code into commercial products!

But IANAL

@ypercubeᵀᴹ "why not Apache?" - why not indeed? I think it's great that they're releasing the code - I'm just questioning their motives - why not make it a commercial offering? Get wide adoption externally and then offer to host? I'm also impressed with the firecracker project - but Amazon isn't in the business of philanthropy - again, qui bono?

Hmm, maybe it was a skunkworks project and Amazon didn't see any commercial advantage

contrary to my earlier thoughts then

I did note that the AWS probably includes costs of licenses in their rates? I'm not familiar with their pricing or licensing structure

@Colin'tHart "and Amazon didn't see any commercial advantage" - I can see a commercial advantage in being able to offer SQL Server functionality without paying Microsoft!

But if customers demand the real thing? Not something that in theory is compatible?

The old theory that customers want someone to blame

if/when something doesn't work

@Colin'tHart "But IANAL" - see this answer - but IANAL either nor am I an expert. "The old theory that customers want someone to blame" - yes, but if the customer wants the "pure" SQL product, they would pay a premium and blame Microsoft, if they wanted Babelfish, they could pay less (Amazon's fee - MS's licence) and blame Amazon - which would presumably provide SLA's?

Anyway, I'm curious about the tech more than the licensing/commercialisation

@Colin'tHart " I'm curious about the tech more than the licensing/commercialisation" - yeah, me too! I'm doing a Masters at the minute and I want to use F/LOSS for my projects - I really don't care if it's GPL, BSD, Apache, Public Domain or whatever - but the key word is "more". I'm also interested, but I'd choose other hills to die on! :-)

Curious about your thesis subject / area of study?

@Colin'tHart "Curious about your thesis subject / area of study?" - well, if you check my profile, you'll see that I'm into Molecular Biology and RDBMS - I hope to combine the two in some sort of bioinformatics role - and possibly continue on into academia!

Haven't come to the actual project thesis stage yet - lectures (virtual - a real PITA - I love asking questions and interacting with the lecturers) only atm!

@Vérace Combine the two? As in building an RDBMS at the molecular level, so that some day someone might say, "Databases are in my DNA. Literally."?

@AndriyM I presume that you're being facetious! :-) What I meant was to use my database/IT knowledge to help analyse biological phenomena - that and a bit of programming and I would have my ideal job - if you like your job, you'll never have to work a day in your life! :-)

DNA strands as information storage elements... hmmm... I reckon that carbon nanotubules are probably better (but see here - I'll be drawing my pension (or pushing up the daisies) long before this becomes a reality!

@Vérace Full disclosure: yes, I was being facetious