I guess this is one way to attract customers to DB2...
Not a technical problem thread — it's a discussion sparked by a CNET story quoting an IBM UK employee suggesting DB2 could be open-sourced. Posters debated whether that would help (comparisons to MySQL, and a suggestion to open-source Informix SE) versus the downsides, citing Cloudscape/Derby and Eclipse/RAD as cases where giving away a base product removed the incentive to buy and ceded control of direction to the community. The matter was settled when a Computerworld piece was posted showing IBM denied any plans to open-source DB2, leading to remarks about IBM's poor internal communication.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
Check out this nice little article on cnet's news.com: http://news.cnet.com/2100-7344-6241694.html?tag=nefd.top The gist of this is someone in IBM UK's office is suggesting putting DB2 out as open source. Now, I believe the idea is to take the "version" of DB2 "lite" that they give away for free and make that open source. All the nice and tasty bits that IBM charges for will of course not be licensed as open source and they would still charge for them. (We're talking about data partitioning, HACMP, etc ...) You can read the article and draw your own conclusions. My take is that this again is short sighted thinking on the part of IBM as a way to attract more users to DB2. Don't get your hopes up for an IDS Open Source version. IBM is selling IDS to non-aligned and integrated markets. (Read Whitespace and SMB.) IDS's competition is the shops selling PostgresSQL as part of a solution. Now I wonder who in IBM SWG IM allowed this "boffin" to speak? I say "boffin" with a ton of sarcasm.
Gumpy I think it is absolutely remarkable that IBM will open source DB2. On many fronts a very smart move. This announcement should tell you where their priorities are. They see how MySQL captured a market, and it can work for DB2 as well. The flip side to competing against your competitor is to just give it away in exchange for owning the market, and eventually build up professional services on top of a free engine. It makes a lot of sense. It might even attract developers, which is exactly what MySQL did for their own market. Developers are the key to who will dominate the landscape of applications and databases. If they wanted to, which would be very cool, IBM should also open source Informix Standard Engine. This is the peer of a lot of the MySQL market, now moving into a partitioning-enabled-engine, no longer just ISAM or InnoDB. There might be enough interest to get more people interested in Informix, but it's anybody's guess that anyone would care. -PID- Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > Check out this nice little article on cnet's news.com: > http://news.cnet.com/2100-7344-6241694.html?tag=nefd.top > > The gist of this is someone in IBM UK's office is suggesting putting > DB2 out as open source. > > Now, I believe the idea is to take the "version" of DB2 "lite" that > they give away for free and make that open source. > All the nice and tasty bits that IBM charges for will of course not be > licensed as open source and they would still charge for them. (We're > talking about data partitioning, HACMP, etc ...) > > You can read the article and draw your own conclusions. > > My take is that this again is short sighted thinking on the part of > IBM as a way to attract more users to DB2. > Don't get your hopes up for an IDS Open Source version. IBM is selling > IDS to non-aligned and integrated markets. (Read Whitespace and SMB.) > IDS's competition is the shops selling PostgresSQL as part of a > solution. > > Now I wonder who in IBM SWG IM allowed this "boffin" to speak? I say > "boffin" with a ton of sarcasm. >
Unfortunately it wasn't actually true IBM says it has 'no plans' to open-source DB2 database Computerworld Eric Lai June 16, 2008 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=18&articleId=9098458&intsrc=hm_topic
On Jun 16, 10:09 pm, Mark Townsend <markbtowns...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > Unfortunately it wasn't actually true > > IBM says it has 'no plans' to open-source DB2 database > Computerworld > Eric Lai > June 16, 2008http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBas... Well the quote was true, however we see a lot of back peddling. I think we were all a tad skeptical of the comments since they were coming from a BUE in the UK and not a senior management type or a quote from the "labs". (Markam for DB2, Lenexa, or the Left Coast for IDS). As to InDeep, I don't think that those who think that this is a good idea, fully understand the implications and longer term issues with doing this. Most notably, IBM pulled Cloudscape resources and support from Derby leaving Sun to be the only company fully backing and licensing support for JavaDB. Under the Apache licensing, Gains in Derby can be used to enhance the JavaDB and the Cloudscape products, however, the negative is that if there is a bug, and it needs to be fixed for a paying customer, that fix will be applied to the Open Source product. (eventually). They have to do this in order to keep both products in sync. So there's an economic dis-incentive for the customer to purchase the product. Why buy something when you can wait and get the same value for free. You also tend to lose control of the product when it goes Open Source. You're asking for a community to support a product, the community gains control over the direction that the product will take. This could be good or bad, depending on the alignment between the community and the company releasing the open source code. (You can see this play out in several products.) You can look at Eclipse as well. IBM sells RAD, based on Eclipse. Why buy an expensive product when you can get the base functionality that you want for free. Not to mention stiff competition from NetBeans. So you see, taking a product open source may get you a short term boost, but long term, not so good. But hey! I just gave Derby and Eclipse as examples. There are others like Sun's Java, but you get the idea. And I didn't talk about smaller companies that made their claim to fame by taking and riding the open source wave like some of the PostgresSQL companies that start with open source code and build proprietary systems on top. And of course the obligatory "What do I know?" Its not like I gave the business side to IT much thought.... ;-) -G
Curious that an organization the size of IBM has difficulty communicating their product line. Oracle doesn't seem to have that problem. Mark Townsend wrote: > Unfortunately it wasn't actually true > > IBM says it has 'no plans' to open-source DB2 database > Computerworld > Eric Lai > June 16, 2008 > http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=18&articleId=9098458&intsrc=hm_topic >
InDeep said: > > > Curious that an organization the size of IBM has difficulty communicating > their product line. It's hard to communicate to the rest of the world when your left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. -- Bye now, Obnoxio "There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the Labour Party. They promised you order, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent."