Sun floats open-source database idea

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products. In fact, Sleepycat's product already is embedded within some Sun server software.

CA's Ingres has several features to recommend it, though.

For one thing, even though MySQL is the most widely used open-source database, Ingres is the most technologically mature, said Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna. And CA could use a partner to help advance Ingres.

"MySQL has got a lot of visibility, and I think Ingres wants to catch up in terms of the adoption," Yuhanna said.

One license to rule them all?
Legal complications of open-source software could help align Sun and CA. Sun has begun releasing its Solaris as open-source software, choosing the Community Development and Distribution License, or CDDL, to govern the software.

CA crafted its own license for Ingres, the CA Trusted Open Source License, which received its official open-source stamp of approval the same day in January that Sun's CDDL did.

Having multiple licenses means more headaches for programmers, lawyers and customers, and it raises barriers for swapping source code from one project to another. But Sun and CA are working to unify licenses, said Sam Greenblatt, a senior vice president and senior technical adviser to CA.

"We are absolutely working on it with Sun lawyers. My lawyer working on it has informed me that we've made great progress," Greenblatt said.

Having a database released under the CDDL license would be handy for Sun--especially if it chooses to release its Java Enterprise System as open-source software, as Sun hinted last week it might.

Some of CA's partnership work with Sun comes via an Ingres-based product called MDB that is used to capture a wide variety of corporate information--everything from lists of which data files a given employee is permitted to use to a list of when a server's memory was last upgraded. That product dovetails nicely with Sun's N1 technology to make a large collection of server, storage and network equipment into a fluid, powerful computing foundation, Gaughan said.

"As part of our ongoing relationship, we are evaluating where it would make sense for our applications to be sold jointly or positioned jointly," Gaughan said.

Partnerships or not, entering the database market isn't easy. And Sun will have learning to do.

"They never have done databases ever before," Yuhanna said. "It's certainly going to be a challenge for Sun to go into this area."

[dargon19888]

Don't discount Cloudscape

Sure Cloudscape is owned by IBM, but its now open sourced.
Cloudscape is a general purpose DB, albiet a Java DB which would be perfect for Sun.

Keep in mind, it will allow Sun to offer something that will not **** off Larry. ;-)

[David Arbogast]

Cloudscape?

If IBM created Cloudscape and released it to the OpenSource community, how do you think they compare it to their commercial DB2 product? Why would they give away a product that can compete with DB2? Why should we not discount a redundant product from IBM that was never intended to generate profits? Have you seen the Derby perfermance statistics? Besides Derby/Cloudscape are tied directly to Java. It is not a product that has the wide-reaching market of Oracle or MSSQL, or even MySQL. It sounds to me like it needs a Java environment just to exist, so it will never be able to compete at the same level as more common db systems.

No Thanks - Already have PostgreSQL

Which is free and covers the bases. If things outgrow
PostgreSQL, there's always Oracle. But this adds nothing that
developers don't already have.

Why not upgrade to FSP instead?

You write "If things outgrow PostgreSQL, there's always Oracle."

Perhaps a better upgrade path would be to FSP (Fujitsu Supported PostgreSQL)
http://fastware.com.au/docs/FujitsuSupportedPostgreSQLWhitePaper.pdf
which I believe has Fujitsu's extremely scalable "Extened Storage Manager"(ESM) to provide extremely heavy I/O, many-way SMP, etc; with PostgreSQL's parser,planner and executor for SQL compatability.

Another option - One$DB as Sun DB

Heres why:

- It fulfils all criteria

- Is licensed under the LGPL ----> free for free as well as commercial apps

- Its in Java (also J2EE certified)

Have a look at:
http://www.daffodildb.com/one-dollar-db.html

Cheers,
Ladi