An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet News reports that Oracle is likely to announce a free version of its Oracle 10g Database. Oracle Database 10g Express Edition will be free for development and production use, and could even be distributed with other products. What does this mean for the future of MySQL and PostgreSQL?" From the article: "By introducing a free entry-level product, Oracle intends to get more developers and students familiar with its namesake database, Mendelsohn said. Those customers, Oracle hopes, will eventually upgrade to a higher-end version."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='databases,biz';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Oracle To Offer A Free Database Log in/Create an Account | Top | 339 comments (Spill at 50!) | Index Only | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 339 comments 0: 332 comments 1: 280 comments 2: 210 comments 3: 52 comments 4: 28 comments 5: 21 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. First Post by CptChipJew (Score:1) Monday October 31, @07:32AM Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful) by badfish99 (826052) on Monday October 31, @08:00AM (#13914200) If MySQL will do what you want, then you don't need Oracle.But if your database is really big enough to need Oracle, then MySQL certainly won't be in the running as an alternative. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:First Post by Short Circuit (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:23AMSome reasons for using Oracle by jandersen (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:09AMWhat features do you need? by Futurepower(R) (Score:3) Monday October 31, @09:51AMMS SQL Server 2005 Express by Futurepower(R) (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:07AMRe:MS SQL Server 2005 Express by Tassach (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:04PMRe:MS SQL Server 2005 Express by ToasterofDOOM (Score:1) Monday October 31, @03:11PMRe:What features do you need? by Jaseoldboss (Score:3) Monday October 31, @10:24AMRe:What features do you need? by ahodgson (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:27AMRe:What features do you need? by chris_mahan (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:47AMRe:What features do you need? by MightyMartian (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:14PMRe:What features do you need? by Not The Real Me (Score:1) Monday October 31, @03:38PMRe:What features do you need? by chris_mahan (Score:1) Monday October 31, @07:52PMRe:What features do you need? by Cromac (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:03PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:What features do you need? by HvitRavn (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:53AMRe:What features do you need? by einhverfr (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:49PMRe:First Post by kpharmer (Score:3) Monday October 31, @10:34AMRe:First Post by Eivind Eklund (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:59AM Re:First Post (Score:4, Funny) by kcelery (410487) on Monday October 31, @12:04PM (#13916052) it is interesting to find that no one is suggesting 'a beowulf cluster of free Oracles'. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:First Post by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:10PMRe:First Post by Eunuchswear (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:37PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.3 replies beneath your current threshold. Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful) by Zathrus (232140) on Monday October 31, @09:44AM (#13914845) (http://slashdot.org/) Oracle is a rubbish dinosaur that hasnt aged all that wellAnd this is insightful?It's a baseless accusation. The poster doesn't even attempt to provide any proof for it. Oracle is continuously leads the pack in benchmarks, it has more features than you can shake a stick at, is incredibly stable, and has features that MySQL is just starting to catch up with (wow, MySQL finally got views! How wonderfully 1980s.)coz IBM said if it dont do what you want, work round to it. Oracle said, ok we'll patch it.So suddenly not adding features and refusing to respond to your userbase is a good thing? No wonder IBM's lost most of the market outside of mainframes and minis.MySQL is excellent for what it is, a website database serverWell this much is true at least. But I still wouldn't use it much beyond a toy website. PostgreSQL or Firebird are better for the same price -- both in features and in stability/reliability.cant see many php developers going to the trouble of using oracleThe trouble? You clearly don't know what you're talking about now. Oracle is far easier/better to write SQL for since it's both more flexible and closer to the SQL "standard" (and that's a pretty sad statement). There's also far more information out there for help with Oracle than there is with MySQL, not to mention that Oracle is something very useful to put on your resume/CV -- MySQL isn't totally unknown anymore, but Oracle is still better as far as that goes.Now if you want to rightfully bash Oracle then talk about their miserable installer and bundled administration tools. They suck. They've always sucked. And they're not getting better IMO. Oracle's on a buying spree right now, and I so wish that they'd buy out Quest Software and bundle TOAD (Windows) or tORA (*nix) with their servers. The Java crap they use now blows. The other (and related) issue is that administering an Oracle server can be a daunting task, and there's not a great deal of (free) literature available for it. Oragle 10g has made strides here with the database doing a lot of self-fixing and tuning, but it could be better (or at least better documented). Of course, one reason that MySQL doesn't need as much here is because there simply as much that can be done to it. Flexibility has a price. [ Reply to This | ParentPHP and Oracle by sinkemlow (Score:3) Monday October 31, @11:24AMRe:First Post by camt (Score:1) Monday October 31, @12:11PMOracle? by jgardn (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:41PMRe:Oracle? by Eric^2 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @03:52PM4 replies beneath your current threshold.Re: "Oracle is a rubbish dinosaur" by smparadox (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:38AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by defMan (175410) on Monday October 31, @07:33AM (#13914059) Database XE is free for runtime usage with the following limitations:Supports up to 4GB of user data (in addition to Oracle system data)Single instance only of Oracle Database XE on any serverOnly uses and executes on one processor in any serverCan use up to 1GB RAM [ Reply to ThisRe:what a wimpy database by popeyethesailor (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:40AMRe:what a wimpy database by mysticwhiskey (Score:1) Monday October 31, @07:45AMRe:what a wimpy database by ShootThemLater (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:08AMRe:what a wimpy database by mysticwhiskey (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:13AMRe:what a wimpy database by ShootThemLater (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:27AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:what a wimpy database by Eivind Eklund (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:46AM Re:what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by Dan_Bercell (826965) on Monday October 31, @08:33AM (#13914395) MS has always offered a free database, MSDE [ Reply to This | ParentRe:what a wimpy database by LurkerXXX (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:56AMRe:what a wimpy database by NutscrapeSucks (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:35PMRe:what a wimpy database by hey! (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:35PMRe:what a wimpy database by cduffy (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:56AMRe:what a wimpy database by m4dm4n (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:49AM Re:what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by Professor_UNIX (867045) on Monday October 31, @07:50AM (#13914151) This seems like it's aimed at Microsoft's "free" MSDE rather than open source databases like Postgres or MySQL. The specs are on par with MSDE. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:what a wimpy database by defMan (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:04AMRe:what a wimpy database by cloudmaster (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:50PM Re:what a wimpy database (Score:4, Insightful) by EraserMouseMan (847479) on Monday October 31, @09:05AM (#13914590) You should RTFA. The strategy is directly aimed at gaining more usage from the people who typically would choose MySQL or PostressSql.Microsoft's SqlServer 2005 express has the same strategy. But Oracle is doing this for the same reason Microsoft is --> they are getting jealous of the Open Source database market share.My personal prediction is that Oracle's lite version won't catch on because Oracle's db is so dang complicated to set up correctly and the tools stink in comparison. [ Reply to This | ParentSort of by einhverfr (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:55PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:what a wimpy database by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:16PMRe:what a wimpy database by davegaramond (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:02PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.It's not free, it's gratis [nt] by Arker (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:09AMRe:what a wimpy database by bataras (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:14AMRe:what a wimpy database by tetranz (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:45AMRe:what a wimpy database by bataras (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:02PMRe:what a wimpy database by Unordained (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:12PMRe:what a wimpy database by bataras (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:32PMRe:what a wimpy database by electroniceric (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:19PMRe:what a wimpy database by Unordained (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:55PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by smitty_one_each (243267) * <smitty_one_each@@@hotmail...com> on Monday October 31, @08:05AM (#13914216) (http://www.emacswiki...iki/ChristopherSmith | Last Journal: Friday July 22, @08:43AM) The thing about PostGreSQL that trumps the competition, IMHO, is that you can build in support for tools such as Python on the DB server.PL/pgSQL bears a resemblance to PL/SQL, and both languages are servicable enough. Oracle cooks in its own JVM. While Java is an undeniably powerful tool, one feels relatively enslaved to the JVM, compared to the bliss of simple, clear Python code. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by LLuthor (909583) <lexington.luthor@gmail.com> on Monday October 31, @08:20AM (#13914313) PostgreSQL also can embed a JVM for writing stored procudures and user functions and aggregate functions, but its not very well supported (yet). PG does have quite a few companies behind it so I doubt it will stay that way for long.PG probably has the best language support of all DBs. Is there any major language that doesn't have a PG interface in 8.1? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:what a wimpy database by zeke2.0 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @06:16PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Re:what a wimpy database (Score:5, Informative) by Goo.cc (687626) * on Monday October 31, @08:05AM (#13914217) (http://metawire.org/~agent69/) I believe that these limitations mirrors Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, which is where they probably got them from. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:what a wimpy database by way2trivial (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:17AMRe:what a wimpy database by ll1234 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:48AMRe:what a wimpy database by blowdart (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:34AMRe:what a wimpy database by mikaelhg (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:32AMRe:what a wimpy database by HiThere (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:57PMRe:what a wimpy database by craigmarshall (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:26AMSQL Express by MajorDick (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:28AMRe:what a wimpy database by strudeau (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:56AMRe:what a wimpy database by photon317 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:24AMRe:what a wimpy database by Jeppe Salvesen (Score:3) Monday October 31, @09:36AMRe:what a wimpy database by booch (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:56PMRe:what a wimpy database by justasecond (Score:1) Monday October 31, @04:02PMRe:what a wimpy database by dindi (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:11AMRe:what a wimpy database by T-Ranger (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:26PMRe:what a wimpy database by mpeppler (Score:1) Monday October 31, @01:45PMRe:what a wimpy database by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:13PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. It Could Backfire (Score:5, Insightful) by obender (546976) on Monday October 31, @07:33AM (#13914062) Unless Oracle puts together a better administration interface than the current bunch of tools people might actually learn to stay away from it. [ Reply to This Re:It Could Backfire (Score:5, Funny) by mysticwhiskey (569750) <mystic_whiskey AT hotmail DOT com> on Monday October 31, @07:39AM (#13914092) If anyone and his dog could administer an Oracle database, what will happen to the professional Oracle DBA's? THINK OF THE DBA'S!!! ;) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:It Could Backfire by cnelzie (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:12AM Re:It Could Backfire (Score:4, Insightful) by oni (41625) on Monday October 31, @09:43AM (#13914834) (http://slashdot.org/) Have you ever seen a Database "constructed" by someone who knows nothing about Database design?That would describe 90% of the databases I've ever seen. Then people are amazed when they realize that there are questions that their data CANNOT answer, not because the information isn't there, but because of they way they've organized it.I'll give examples if anyone is interested. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:It Could Backfire by secolactico (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:33AMRe:It Could Backfire by oni (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:57AMRe:It Could Backfire by orderb13 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:59AMRe:It Could Backfire by benjamin264 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @12:29PMRe:It Could Backfire by einhverfr (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:05PMRe:It Could Backfire by fbg111 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:11PMRe:It Could Backfire by jsantos (Score:1) Monday October 31, @02:00PM Re:It Could Backfire (Score:5, Interesting) by oni (41625) on Monday October 31, @03:09PM (#13917525) (http://slashdot.org/) What I've seen a lot of are databases designed by programmers - good programmers too, these guys weren't slouches. They didn't have any formal training in databases or maybe they hadn't paid attention. Programmers tend to approach database design by thinking, "what data structures do I need to get out of this?" Someone more experienced in database design approaches the problem by thinking, "what relationships are here and how do I model them?"Here's a real-world example. A web-based application that I was hired to extend and maintain included a system for users to exchange the lesson plans they created on the site with other users. In doing this, the users built up something like a buddy list. "These are the people that I often share with." Or you can think of it as being like an address book.With me so far? OK, the programmer (who was very sharp - probably better at this than I am) approached the database thinking, "what data do I need from this thing," and decided that what he needed was a comma delimited list of userIDs. So he physically stored the buddy list in the database in like a char(500) as a comma delimited list.That was actually great for what he was doing. He was just showing a user their buddy list. Unfortunately, that isn't normalized. So, there is a question you can ask which can't be answered by the data. That question is, "how many people have userID 50 as one of their buddies?"See, the correct way of doing this is to have a many-to-many relationship which you implement with a table containing just two columns, userID and BuddyID. So if I'm user 12 and users 13,14, and 15 are my buddies, I have three rows in that table:UserID BuddyID12 1312 1412 15Now if I need to ask, "how many people have userID 50 as one of their buddies" I can do select count(*) from X where BuddyID = 50BTW, I actually fixed this one not by normalizing but with a hack. I appended 0 to the front and back of the buddy list, then I could do select count(*) from user where buddylist like '%,50,%' But hacks aren't how I make my living. I'd prefer to do things the right way. What my boss wanted was, every time you look at this page it shows you who has you set as a buddy. Kind of like what Slashdot does with the "fans" page. If it was normalized, that would be a scan of an indexed column. It would be lighting fast. so fast the page would practically load before you even clicked the link. But doing a "like" on a big char field is slow.There are I'm sure still other questions that the un-normalized database cannot answer. Also there are problems with deleting users and, the big one, overflowing that char(500). "How many buddies can a person have?" I was asked. "It depends" I said. If all my buddies are low number IDs, I can have a lot. If my buddies are high number IDs, I can have fewer. It's all just huge mess! Of course, it worked according to the original specification though.I have a lot of respect for the guy who wrote it. And I'm not tooting my own horn either. I've have other people look at databases I've designed and just torn them to pieces. This is just one example where I just happen to know that he did it the wrong way. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:It Could Backfire by Al Dimond (Score:2) Monday October 31, @06:47PMAnd then the next lousy programmer comes along.... by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:23PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:It Could Backfire by kpharmer (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:10PMRe:It Could Backfire by frostman (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:58PMRe:It Could Backfire by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:19PMRe:It Could Backfire by rabel (Score:3) Monday October 31, @09:41AMRe:It Could Backfire by kpharmer (Score:3) Monday October 31, @09:51AMRe:It Could Backfire by rabel (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:10PMRe:It Could Backfire by kpharmer (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:19PMRe:It Could Backfire by rabel (Score:2) Monday October 31, @05:34PMRe:It Could Backfire by kpharmer (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:10PMRe:It Could Backfire by aralin (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:14AMRe:administrative nightmare by stanmann (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:01PMdump and load = export / import by moscow (Score:1) Monday October 31, @12:08PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.OK support in Visual Studio by spectrokid (Score:3) Monday October 31, @07:45AMRe:It Could Backfire by YoungHack (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:10AMRe:It Could Backfire by iabervon (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:15PMSad Statement by Stone316 (Score:3) Monday October 31, @02:00PMRe:It Could Backfire by ducttapekz (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:36AMRe:It Could Backfire by frisket (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:54AMRe:It Could Backfire by EnronHaliburton2004 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:57AMRe:It Could Backfire by nettdata (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:12PMRe:It Could Backfire by EnronHaliburton2004 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:21PMRe:It Could Backfire by nettdata (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:32PM10g is supposedly better? by sheldon (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:26PMRe:It Could Backfire by zeke2.0 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @06:24PMUse Enterprise Manager by epgandalf (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:54PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. SQL For Fun? (Score:5, Interesting) by Goo.cc (687626) * on Monday October 31, @07:34AM (#13914070) (http://metawire.org/~agent69/) I've been meaning to ask this for a while on Slashdot, but how many people here use a SQL database as part of a hobby or for fun?I currently have PostgeSQL running on my Tiger box. I initially installed it just to experiment with SQL and database normalization, but now I keep my comic book inventory on it. (I know that this is like swatting a fly with a nuclear weapon but I enjoy using PostgreSQL and it is FREE software.)As for Oracle's announcement, I think that it can be a good thing, provided you are willing to live with their restrictions and only need support for Linux (x86?) and Windows. [ Reply to ThisRe:SQL For Fun? by FinestLittleSpace (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:37AMI use SQL databases for everything. by bigtallmofo (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:38AMRe:SQL For Fun? by Dystopian Rebel (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:44AMswatting flies by irote (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:38AMRe:swatting flies by 808140 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:01AM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:SQL For Fun? by will_die (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:08AMRe:SQL For Fun? by Eil (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:28AMRe:SQL For Fun? by everflow (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:14AMRe:SQL For Fun? by Daytona955i (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:26AMRe:SQL For Fun? by brlewis (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:32PMRe:SQL For Fun? by plopez (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:00PMRe:SQL For Fun? by droleary (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:56PMRe:SQL For Fun? by Max Threshold (Score:2) Tuesday November 01, @12:33AMhopefully.. by icecow (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:35AMRestrictions? by mysticwhiskey (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:36AM Move along, move along ... (Score:4, Insightful) by Daniel Dvorkin (106857) * on Monday October 31, @07:37AM (#13914081) (http://www.sff.net/people/Daniel.Dvorkin) ... this is crippleware. It's no threat to MySQL, PostgreSQL, or any other open source DBMS, because the developers of those databases are working to put as many features as possible into their free products, while Oracle is deliberately taking features out. This will probably be a good resource for people who want to learn Oracle on their own time, or organizations already using Oracle that want to test a new rollout without having to pay additional fees via Oracle's baroque pricing scheme, but that's about it. [ Reply to This Re:Move along, move along ... (Score:5, Informative) by popeyethesailor (325796) on Monday October 31, @07:46AM (#13914130) Well, Oracle has always been freely available for non-production use.. They even mail out their entire range of software(DB, App server,dev tools etc) free of cost.I once received 10g for linux, and the box had every latest release of Oracle software for Linux. They're quite developer-friendly; just as MS is. For production use however.. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Move along, move along ... (Score:4, Interesting) by Daniel Dvorkin (106857) * on Monday October 31, @07:52AM (#13914162) (http://www.sff.net/people/Daniel.Dvorkin) Sounds to me like the difference is that you're allowed to use this new edition for (limited) production use as well. Now, I'm sure there are a ton of small shops currently using the free, "non-production" edition for production apps, but of course they're not really supposed to; this gives them a legal route. But I still think the deliberately crippled nature of the product makes it unattractive relative to the open source contenders, in terms that even PHB's will understand: "Boss, if we go with 'free' Oracle, we're going to run into that disk space limit pretty fast, and then we'll have to pay $$$." [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Move along, move along ... by kpharmer (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:35AM Re:Move along, move along ... (Score:5, Interesting) by electroniceric (468976) on Monday October 31, @10:28AM (#13915180) Oracle also has a number of certifications that make it very attractive in certain industries like defense, healthcare, etc. I work in the medical field, and a free 4GB-max "validated" Oracle database is a huge boon to a wide variety of medical ISV's. Given that's it free to redistribute, the OSS/proprietary thing kind of takes a backseat for a lot of these ISVs.By the same token, I also don't think it's going to drive sales in the way they think it will. Databases are slowly but surely going commodity, at least at the lower end of the market, and this merely reinforces that trend. And along with that, there's an increasingly robust set of tools to obviate the differences between these database for most uses that don't demand extreme peformance, from Hibernate and ORM packages to ADODB and other database-independence layers in PHP to .NET's layered data architecture.As a Postgres user, I'm hopeful that Sun's proclaimed interest in Postgres will result in this kind of "validation". However, given Sun's reputedly somewhat lackadaisical commitment to staffing OOo, I'm not holding my breath. With Postgres' extensibility and extremely high-caliber core developer base, I think a strong commitment to validation by Sun could make it a real contender in the medium enterprise space. Validate it, clean up a few features (notably auto-vacuum and passable auto-tuning, maybe some multi-master replication), throw in a simple deployment for ORM or database indirection, and you've effectively moved that commoditization up one layer from the small website developer level.In the long run, I don't see how this gets Oracle out of the need to transition its core revenue off of its database licenses. [ Reply to This | ParentWith "Gratis" Free..Software by WebCowboy (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:18PMRe:With "Gratis" Free..Software by electroniceric (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:22PMRe:Move along, move along ... by pci (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:05AM Re:Move along, move along ... (Score:4, Interesting) by KiloByte (825081) on Monday October 31, @08:11AM (#13914251) The problem with Oracle is, it doesn't scale at all. It is meant to do grid computing, but can't really do anything smaller.How often do you need to use a cluster for your data? If you are a major organization, then you will, but the majority of installations are pretty small. Firewall/website logs. Customer data. And so on.I have once developed a workshift-tracking application for a company with around 200 employees. A couple of years later, the total data takes 17MB. Why would you use Oracle if MySQL works faster and takes 1% of the resources? A minimal installation of Oracle 10g takes ~800MB of memory, and will take over ten hours to install on a machine with 512MB ram, on the other hand, on my firewall (486, 32MB ram) MySQL can handle Apache logs (only about 200k hits, though) taking a split second for any reasonable query.Oracle works better for clusters.MySQL works better for a single machine.MySQL is a lot faster. Oracle takes distributed processing a lot better.But uhm, where does a crippled version fit in the picture? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Move along, move along ... by LLuthor (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:28AMRe:Move along, move along ... by rjstanford (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:29AMRe:Move along, move along ... by briansmith (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:09AMRe:Move along, move along ... by KiloByte (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:28PMRe:Move along, move along ... by Eivind Eklund (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:54AMRe:Move along, move along ... by javaxman (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:10PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Move along, move along ... by nettdata (Score:2) Monday October 31, @12:29PMRe:Move along, move along ... by KiloByte (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:05PMRe:Move along, move along ... by nettdata (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:20PMRe:Move along, move along ... by KiloByte (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:59PMRe:Move along, move along ... by nettdata (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:30PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Move along, move along ... by kpharmer (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:50PMRe:Move along, move along ... by KiloByte (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:17PMRe:Move along, move along ... by kpharmer (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:59PMMore FUD by Stone316 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:14PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Move along, move along ... by Zathrus (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:34PMRe:Move along, move along ... by bampot (Score:1) Monday October 31, @06:27PMRe:Move along, move along ... by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:35PMRe:Move along, move along ... by Varun Soundararajan (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:04AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. They must own stock in Maxtor (Score:4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31, @07:37AM (#13914082) Clearly, Oracle has bought a major disk drive company. Have you ever downloaded or tried to install Oracle? It's easily 10 Gigs of useless crud, wrapped around a few CD's of material actually relevant to your particular setup. For Linux, they publish it as a set of binary bundles that have to be strung together so that you can *then* take apart the tarball. What a waste of disk space!The approach shows up in everything they do. Build a huge, conglomerated edifice of software to provide the one brick you actually need, rather than keeping components modular and portable. It's like making people install a whole radio station just to get a pair of headphones. [ Reply to ThisRe:They must own stock in Maxtor by Ledis (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:51AMRe:They must own stock in Maxtor by argent (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:16PMRe:They must own stock in Maxtor by quantum bit (Score:3) Monday October 31, @09:19AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Nice by Delifisek (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:37AMRe:Nice by 1001011010110101 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:48AMRe:Nice by mysticwhiskey (Score:1) Monday October 31, @07:55AMRe:Nice by 1001011010110101 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:36AM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Weak passwords? by bigtallmofo (Score:2) Monday October 31, @07:43AMRe:Weak passwords? by j_snare (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:14AM But will it be easy to install? (Score:5, Insightful) by samuel4242 (630369) on Monday October 31, @07:44AM (#13914115) The main reason I like MySQL is it works five minutes after I finish downloading it. And it's much smaller than Oracle so I can download it quickly. I spent two days trying to make Oracle work on an Linux box and it never did. The price ain't the only reason I like open source. :-) [ Reply to ThisRe:But will it be easy to install? by Eivind Eklund (Score:3) Monday October 31, @11:49AMRe:But will it be easy to install? by zardo (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:38PM