Re: An Informix Positive Point
A discussion thread (not a support question) about IBM's handling of Informix. Participants complain that the Cheetah-2 (IDS 11.5) open beta is under NDA so testers can't discuss its features, contrasting this unfavourably with Microsoft's pre-announcement marketing. The main debate is whether IBM should revive Informix SE as a free or open-source entry-level database to seed the market against MySQL, with points raised about community support, licensing/IP risk, SE's stored procedure and trigger support, and the need for DRDA drivers. Suggestions ended with taking the idea to IBM via the IIUG conference; no resolution is recorded.
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dcruncher4@aim.com wrote: > In article <1204833090.830293@bubbleator.drizzle.com>, DA Morgan says... > Wait for few more months when features of Cheetah-2 goes open. You > will get a shock to see the new features of it. Then you will realize > whether IBM is removing the valuables from the ship or refurbishing it. > Being who I am, doing what I do, I should not say some things... But the "thing" is open beta... We can see it, we can test it, we can try to break it, we can try to understand it... but we CAN NOT talk about it... Oh boy... -- Fernando Nunes Portugal http://informix-technology.blogspot.com My email works... but I don't check it frequently...
C'mon.... Daniel is freaking out a bit because that some of the "new" features in 11 were to make migrating from Oracle easier. Ooops! That cat's out of the bag. But I really think we should focus on the concept of IBM using SE to seed the market. I'm not in agreement that they should open source it. I don't know that a C-ISAM based technology could get enough of a community behind supporting it. That doesn't mean that IBM couldn't get people to register for free downloads of SE that have liberal licenses. > From: spam@onlinedomus.net > Subject: Re: An Informix Positive Point > Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:18:07 +0000 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > dcruncher4@aim.com wrote: > > In article <1204833090.830293@bubbleator.drizzle.com>, DA Morgan says... > > > Wait for few more months when features of Cheetah-2 goes open. You > > will get a shock to see the new features of it. Then you will realize > > whether IBM is removing the valuables from the ship or refurbishing it. > > > > Being who I am, doing what I do, I should not say some things... > But the "thing" is open beta... We can see it, we can test it, we can try to > break it, we can try to understand it... but we CAN NOT talk about it... > > Oh boy... > > -- > Fernando Nunes > Portugal > > http://informix-technology.blogspot.com > My email works... but I don't check it frequently... > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
Curious thing about MySQL. Even though some of the bleeding edge shops are getting in to MySQL's stored procs, the partitioning is still not quite there, but it is getting better, and there is no shared-memory management--at least as far as the engine is concerned. If you go into 'production' today on the latest version you really are a pioneer, there are still too many unknowns to really take it serious--yet many MySQL shops take it very serious. Enough to add on clustering products and real money into making it work. But your statement about community support is bait. MySQL community support is built-in, as part of the model. The recent addition of some monitoring tools, and some improvements shows that it is maturing. I'd be curious to see how SE would stack up performance-wise but I wouldn't know since there is no download for SE. :-( Getting back to my point, SE should be used as it was for a long long time to slide customers into IDS. Didn't SE have stored procs? Been too long so I don't remember. Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > C'mon.... > > Daniel is freaking out a bit because that some of the "new" features in > 11 were to make migrating from Oracle easier. > Ooops! That cat's out of the bag. > > But I really think we should focus on the concept of IBM using SE to > seed the market. I'm not in agreement that they should open source it. I > don't know that a C-ISAM based technology could get enough of a > community behind supporting it. That doesn't mean that IBM couldn't get > people to register for free downloads of SE that have liberal licenses. > > > > > From: spam@onlinedomus.net > > Subject: Re: An Informix Positive Point > > Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:18:07 +0000 > > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > > > dcruncher4@aim.com wrote: > > > In article <1204833090.830293@bubbleator.drizzle.com>, DA Morgan > says... > > > > > Wait for few more months when features of Cheetah-2 goes open. You > > > will get a shock to see the new features of it. Then you will realize > > > whether IBM is removing the valuables from the ship or refurbishing it. > > > > > > > Being who I am, doing what I do, I should not say some things... > > But the "thing" is open beta... We can see it, we can test it, we can > try to > > break it, we can try to understand it... but we CAN NOT talk about it... > > > > Oh boy... > > > > -- > > Fernando Nunes > > Portugal > > > > http://informix-technology.blogspot.com > > My email works... but I don't check it frequently... > > _______________________________________________ > > Informix-list mailing list > > Informix-list@iiug.org > > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! MSN Messenger > <http://clk.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/>;
On Mar 7, 3:17 am, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: > But your statement about community support is bait. MySQL community support > is built-in, as part of the model. The recent addition of some monitoring > tools, and some improvements shows that it is maturing. I'd be curious to > see how SE would stack up performance-wise but I wouldn't know since there is > no download for SE. :-( Getting back to my point, SE should be used as it > was for a long long time to slide customers into IDS. Didn't SE have stored > procs? Been too long so I don't remember. > It seems that SE supports Triggers as well as Stored Procedures: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/se_7.html Yes, SE is a forgotten jewel. However IBM might need to add DRDA support to SE as their current/future client strategy is heavily based on DRDA. This would ensure that always the latest drivers for the popular development tools/ languages like PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java/JDBC, DataStudio etc. are also available for SE. It is not necessarily a requirement as there a drivers available for the Informix-SQLI protoco,l but it might help if they really want to push SE.
> From: indeep@indeep.com > But your statement about community support is bait. MySQL community support > is built-in, as part of the model. The recent addition of some monitoring > tools, and some improvements shows that it is maturing. I'd be curious to > see how SE would stack up performance-wise but I wouldn't know since there is > no download for SE. :-( Getting back to my point, SE should be used as it > was for a long long time to slide customers into IDS. Didn't SE have stored > procs? Been too long so I don't remember. No, not bait. Suppose you go and make this OpenSource. That is, IBM's kicking the code out. Using Cloudscape as a model, IBM will have some of their guys and gals support it. But you still need to build a community around it. If you don't get enough of a community, then it dies. The other problem is licensing. Use the wrong license and you've handed over some IP to MySQL. (Both are written in C and SE does things right....) I think the best model would be if you seeded the market with a give away via the IIUG or via IBM but having to register for the copy. (Then IBM can write this off as a marketing expense. ;-) Of course the biggest catch. Since its free, there's no *support* for the product. You could buy support, if needed... But hey! What do I know? We're just talking shit. Like there's no one at the IIUG or IBM to float this idea or anything. ;-) _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
I wouldn't argue against DRDA connectivity. And we're talking about IBM's drivers. But IBM does support a JDBC to Informix and Carsten's Python module is pretty good. Better than cx_Oracle. I guess the point is that by having a bitch session and talking about ways IBM can improve their community image, we may actually have a great idea for IBM. The real open issue is who will take this to IBM and get them to see the value? There are a couple of ways to spin this, all positive. > From: eric@herber-consulting.de > Subject: Re: An Informix Positive Point > Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 04:43:02 -0800 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > On Mar 7, 3:17 am, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: > > > But your statement about community support is bait. MySQL community support > > is built-in, as part of the model. The recent addition of some monitoring > > tools, and some improvements shows that it is maturing. I'd be curious to > > see how SE would stack up performance-wise but I wouldn't know since there is > > no download for SE. :-( Getting back to my point, SE should be used as it > > was for a long long time to slide customers into IDS. Didn't SE have stored > > procs? Been too long so I don't remember. > > > > It seems that SE supports Triggers as well as Stored Procedures: > > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/se_7.html > > Yes, SE is a forgotten jewel. However IBM might need to add DRDA > support to > SE as their current/future client strategy is heavily based on DRDA. > This would ensure > that always the latest drivers for the popular development tools/ > languages > like PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java/JDBC, DataStudio etc. are also > available for SE. > > It is not necessarily a requirement as there a drivers available for > the Informix-SQLI > protoco,l but it might help if they really want to push SE. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
Seems like SE was 'floated' 10 years ago and made a little bit of an impact, when MySQL was really primitive. MySQL basically took SE's place. Maybe now if there were anyone with a clue it could be a great 'do-over'. But it does not need to be open source, simply free to use and deploy. The installation is pretty straight forward. It would need a real marketing plan as an alternative to MySQL. Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > > > > From: indeep@indeep.com > > > But your statement about community support is bait. MySQL community > support > > is built-in, as part of the model. The recent addition of some monitoring > > tools, and some improvements shows that it is maturing. I'd be curious to > > see how SE would stack up performance-wise but I wouldn't know since > there is > > no download for SE. :-( Getting back to my point, SE should be used as it > > was for a long long time to slide customers into IDS. Didn't SE have > stored > > procs? Been too long so I don't remember. > > No, not bait. > > Suppose you go and make this OpenSource. That is, IBM's kicking the code > out. Using Cloudscape as a model, IBM will have some of their guys and > gals support it. But you still need to build a community around it. If > you don't get enough of a community, then it dies. The other problem is > licensing. Use the wrong license and you've handed over some IP to > MySQL. (Both are written in C and SE does things right....) > > I think the best model would be if you seeded the market with a give > away via the IIUG or via IBM but having to register for the copy. > (Then IBM can write this off as a marketing expense. ;-) > > Of course the biggest catch. Since its free, there's no *support* for > the product. You could buy support, if needed... > > But hey! What do I know? > We're just talking shit. Like there's no one at the IIUG or IBM to float > this idea or anything. ;-) > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. Get it now! > <http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008>;
On Mar 7, 12:18 am, Fernando Nunes <s...@onlinedomus.net> wrote: > dcrunch...@aim.com wrote: > > In article <1204833090.830...@bubbleator.drizzle.com>, DA Morgan says... > > Wait for few more months when features of Cheetah-2 goes open. You > > will get a shock to see the new features of it. Then you will realize > > whether IBM is removing the valuables from the ship or refurbishing it. > > Being who I am, doing what I do, I should not say some things... > But the "thing" is open beta... We can see it, we can test it, we can try to > break it, we can try to understand it... but we CAN NOT talk about it... > > Oh boy... > > -- > Fernando Nunes > Portugal > > http://informix-technology.blogspot.com > My email works... but I don't check it frequently... Fernando, that's the difference between IBM and Microsoft marketing. Microsoft has talked about the new features of SQL Server 2008 many many months before the planned release date giving people the impression that all this stuff is ready to use. Then they postponed the release several times. IBM already has those nice functionality in IDS 11.5 and the product is nearly ready to go. But they keep it secret, very secret, so secret that you need to accept a NDA when you download the open beta software. Strange, strange... I'm not a Microsoft advocate but their way of talking about features which partially only exist on Powerpoint Slides seems to me much more successful then keeping everything secret. Delaying a product several times is certainly not beneficial but promoting cool functionality and getting attention in the marketplace is the right way if you want to sell your software and expand your market penetration outside the existing (Informix) community.
On Mar 7, 3:45 pm, Ian Michael Gumby <im_gu...@hotmail.com> wrote: > The real open issue is who will take this to IBM and get them to see the value? > There are a couple of ways to spin this, all positive. Yes, you are right. It is important that those ideas will be taken to IBM. Not sure, but perhaps the IIUG conference would be a good place to brainstorm and communicate those ideas to IBM. Stuart is certainly a person who is applicable to transfer the ideas to the right persons inside IBM.