My last tract for the day.. First, a comment on RMS' ethos, which is probably shared by Joebert and others.
RMS' most important point is: Freedom is the most important thing. We should never compromise on any software solution which requires us to surrender our freedom. Agreed? But here's the thing... most if not all people are willing to give up some freedom in exchange for other considerations, which may include money, well-being, safety, convenience... The UK s the most surveilled society in the world, but the Britons aren't complaining because they feel safer. Singapore has one of the most punitive criminal codes in the world. Smoke on the subway? $500 fine! and few people dare to question the government. Singapore really can be called an authoritarian state. But look at all the Pinoys flocking there... they'd rather be heavily taxed on cigarettes and liquor, and not be able to litter or denounce the government, in exchange for an orderly existence. In any organized society, you by definition give up some freedom. So RMS' whole argument about the supreme sanctity of freedom, is to me over-rated. Now for a slightly more technical point.... anyone here ever heard or work with MaxDB? Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, SAP licensed the IP rights for Software AG's database Adabas-D. They forked the code and produced their own OLTP, robust database called... SAP DB. It's even certified to run SAP! Now SAP apparently got tired of maintaining their own database (not their core business) so they open-sourced it and let MySQL sell it as MaxDB. Can you believe this? truly open-source, enterprise-class database!! So how many people on this list / Oracle haters actually USE MaxDB? I'm waiting..... The inconvenient truth (which I experienced first hand when I learned that the MaxDB "community" mostly consisted of a guy named Tilo Heinrich who works for SAP in Berlin) is that nobody from the Free software community turned out to help SAP make MaxDB a truly ass-kicking or should I say Oracle-kicking database. Don't believe me? do a google search for "andico maxdb" -- I actually tried to get this stuff working, but when even the installer doesn't work and the only guy who will help you comes from SAP -- I gave up. So much for the Free software community. Like I said w.r.t. Mikael Ronstrom, there are certain software disciplines that your average Free software hacker can't comprehend. So nobody helps out on these projects. I submit that database technology is one of those disciplines (and I'm talking 21st century database, not Oracle version 6, circa-1989 technology). More major examples: OpenOffice and Java. Both open-source. But both of them would wilt without Sun, as the vast majority of the engineers working on them are Sun employees. Schwartz may have pulled a dumb stunt, open-sourcing Sun's crown jewels without getting a veritable Mongolian Horde of Free software hackers to take over developing these systems. Bottom-line, developing complex software costs money. And time and again, the Free software community has shown that as you go up the value chain, the capability of the community to contribute (CCC!) becomes constrained :-) -- Orlando Andico +63.2.976.8659 | +63.920.903.0335 _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List http://lists.linux.org.ph/mailman/listinfo/plug Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
