Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> MySQL ends distribution of Enterprise source tarballs
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | MySQL quietly let slip that it would no longer be distributing the MySQL
> | Enterprise Server source as a tarball, not quite a year after the
> | company announced a split between its paid and free versions.
> `----
>
> http://www.linux.com/feature/118489
>
That doesn't sound very open source to me, the source is actually still
available, but the enterprise version costs about £200 ($400), the lad just
out of university in the Nigerian capital who has just come up with a
brilliant idea that he thinks might revolutionise mysql databases the world
over, is not very likely to be able to get hold of the source code to test
and implement his idea.
I suppose that means that Postgresql gets all future advances us common folk
think up from now on.
The other point in here about MySQL releasing unstable code, don't we just
know it. It is a couple of years since you could with absolute confidence
download and install MySQL, write your app and leave it chugging away
endlessly, you would check it at first quite often, but that would dwindle
because there was never a problem (once your own bugs have gone I mean).
It isn't like that now. You have to make use of the MySQL tools much more
often than I ever remembered using them in the past.
Upgrades, does anyone ever dare do a MySQL upgrade anymore? I used to do
them often as I came from the database world, could do them with confidence
until about version 3, even on occasion when something went wrong, rolling
back or restarting the install was safe enough. That has gone too, it is
far too easy to be left in no mans land. The knew one failed to go on, but
it has done enough damage to the old version that you can't go either way,
the old version can't be recovered, the new one can't go on because it half
went on and the installer is confused about what it should do.
You end up having to manually find all files and references to MySQL on your
system, there are even tools out there on the internet put together by
third parties just because of this situation that MySQL created, they clean
the files off, then you have to decide whether to go back to the version
you know works or go ahead and try the new version now that it has a clean
machine.
I gave up on that sort of crap the second time it happened, I always upgrade
a mirror first anyway, but its still the same risk, mirrors are there for a
reason. So now I only ever install as new to an alternate location to the
default. So at least you can check it all out with your actual databases
before you switch it to live.
I have to say that Postgresql is very attractive in comparrison to MySQL
these days. Going after enterprise money is all very well, they are wages
to pay after all, but if it's at the cost of quallity code and well written
installers, then I'd rather you stayed poor, and if anyone wondered, the
answer is 'No. You don't get better or more advanced installers with the
enterprise version of mysql'.
Postgresql may have at times been slower to progress, but have you ever
heard complaints of this sort about Postgresql? You don't do you, you get
long long threads about use of matrix or something, but how often do you
see a 'Can't install postgresql or can't upgrade it', it just doesn't
happen.
I just googled (because I didn't want to find that they were billions of
these and I just hadn't noticed) and picked the first that came up, it is
an 'Upgrade problem', but the poster makes it clear that it was his mistake
because he didn't export the data first (pg_dumpall) so now his data is in
the wrong format for the new system. (version 6 to 7).
They seem to take measured steps, it's a solid one foot at a time march
forward, that self same system is the way that Linux grew and is really the
only reason that it is still here today, because people didn't rush off to
pile on code for no other reason than to make a million or two. Code has to
have purpose first, commercial second.
|
|
