Re: Informix running on Linux

Richard Stanford said >Wrong. Plain and simple. Say I'm a medium-sized company, trying to >save money but not afraid to spend on commercial products (like an RDBMS) >to get results. I'll probably not set up a mission-critical server on >Linux for one simple reason -- no support. If you want support, you buy support. You do *not* get support suitable for a mission-critical server included with the base commercial packaged OS'. In fact you are lucky to get any *technical* support at all unless you have your credit card handy these days... >Say that Informix does a port to Linux, and one of the (many, but minor) >Linux updates comes along. Maybe it fixes a security hole or something. This >update contains a bug that causes intermittent failures in Online. Once >Informix finds this out -- what do they do? Tell users (users, NOT os >developers, mind you) to put in an OS fix? Tell them to contact their >OS vendor (oh, you don't have one? Hrm...). And who takes the blame? >Informix. This is the hardest part of the port -- after the sale support. This is FUD. SCO does not test their OS patches against all known applications before release. They can't. If the vendor joins their beta programs, signs the NDAs etc. they can do test themselves. What if an update contains a bug -- what do they do? Tell users to put in an OS fix? (If they get the problem they already *have*!) Tell them to contact their OS vendor? (They have paid for OS support then?). And who takes the blame? (No one. Both blame each other.) Incidentally I think there are probably more patches to SCO OS5 than there have been patches to the current stable release of Linux. Some of those SCO patches are big. Some of those SCO patches are known to have potentially OS panicing problems. (Even so both Linux and SCO seem substantially more robust than NT) >This, of course, assumes that people in the Linux market are willing to pay >for it. As has been pointed out, REPEATEDLY, you can run SCO-Informix on >Linux. You can. But it is really only suitable for running *existing* applications. To do compiled 4GL development you need a SCO dev sys for instance. Lots of people run Informix on Linux (I wrote most of the iBCS module that lets you run non-Linux programs - and even I only see the tip of the ice berg since iBCS works too well). The majority of these people (but not all) see their Informix stuff as legacy code. It needs to run but new work is migrating elsewhere. >Sure. Most of Linux's users are individuals, however, with some small >businesses and a few larger ones. You're point? Big businesses grow out of small ones. Big databases grow out of small ones. Even big application suites grow out of small ones much of the time. Small leads to big but not vice versa. >Right, but would they really benefit Informix? A lot of Informix's money >comes from that 10% of the market known as large organizations, you know. This is a growing problem. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get experienced Informix staff here. This makes it difficult and expensive to use Informix for new development. Product cycle through organizations is like an open sided escalator. You have to keep dumping stuff on the bottom to get some to the top. Once it's at the top it just sits there going nowhere until it gets swept up. Mike -- .----------------------------------------------------------------------. | Mike Jagdis | Internet: mailto:mike@roan.co.uk | | Roan Technology Ltd. | | | 54A Peach Street, Wokingham | Telephone: +44 118 989 0403 |