“It’s fascinating to see database vendors lining up to support
Linux, much as they did some years ago when Novell was pushing
UnixWare. What’s different, this time, is that the operating system
platform is an open source project. Linux is the defining existence
proof of the open source philosophy, which holds that broad
collaboration can yield the highest-quality software.”
“It’s not the open source philosophy that now compels
Oracle, Informix, and IBM to port their database engines to Linux,
of course. It’s business. Linux represents a large and growing
share of the server market, a fact these companies would be foolish
to ignore.“
“Oracle, Informix, and IBM aren’t confused about the business
value of open source, and neither should you be. I concluded, a few
years ago, that I preferred Linux to NT for a mission-critical
Web-server-based application. I further concluded that a commercial
Linux database made more sense than the available open source
alternatives. As it turns out, the database I picked — Solid —
evolved in ways that would have made that an uncomfortable choice.
In retrospect, I probably still would have chosen Linux, but I
ought to have thought harder about the availability of several
robust and affordable Linux databases. Given the scarcity of these,
back then, I perhaps ought better to have hooked my
Linux/Apache/mod_perl Web server to a database running on
commercial Unix, or on NT. Don’t let ideology influence these kinds
of decisions; it’s all too easy to paint yourself into a
corner.”