Re: Informix going open source????

Talk about playing with fire. Getting Informix to port to Linux should have been a no brainer, and look how they botched that up. Do you expect IBM to be any different? As JL points out, one of the considerations is the loss in revenue. Then there's the issue of IP control. Especially when you consider that IBM is following the Arrowhead philosophy in joining DB2 and Informix technologies. You have to ask yourself what are the benefits of going open source and what are the benefits of not going open source. First there is a misconception about the SMB market. Its not necessarily the size of the company but how much business does the company do with IBM that determines where they are... You have to consider that once you take a product Open Source, you are no longer willing to make it a core component of your IP or R&D. Companies like MySQL and RedHat have based their entire business model around the IP that is OpenSourced. However, they do make their minimal profits from their services and maintenance support model. If you were to have Oracle make their DB open source'd, you'd see a 90% reduction in head count. Say good by to your sales force, marketing, etc because you couldn't afford to keep them. RDBMS are not a comodity and thus make poor open source candidates, IMHO. Its a nice thought, but not a well thought out plan. CA is in a world of hurt and of course they have a completely different business model than either Informix had or IBM has. Just food for thought, but then again, what do I know? ;-) rkusenet wrote: > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1605396,00.asp > > What is preventing IBM from giving Online 5.20 as open source. > Surely it can outsell MySQL. > > Also when the company outgrows Online 5.20, they can migrate > to IDS, thus generating revenue for IBM. > > >