Re: [PERFORM] Postgres VS Oracle

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Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 6/18/07, Andreas Kostyrka <andreas(at)kostyrka(dot)org> wrote:
>> As a cynic, I might ask, what Oracle is fearing?
>
> As a realist, I might ask, how many times do we have to answer this
> type of anti-commercial-database flamewar-starting question?
>

Well, my experience when working with certain DBs is much like I had
some years ago, when I was forced to work with different SCO Unix legacy
boxes. "Why do I have to put up with this silliness?", and with
databases there is no way to get a sensible tool set by "shopping
around" and installing GNU packages en masse :(

Furthermore not being allowed to talk about performance is a real hard
misfeature, like DRM. Consider:

1.) Performance is certainly an important aspect of my work as a DBA.
2.) Gaining experience as a DBA is not trivial, it's clearly a
discipline that cannot be learned from a book, you need experience. As a
developer I can gain experience on my own. As a DBA, I need some nice
hardware and databases that are big enough to be nontrivial.
3.) The above points make it vital to be able to discuss my experiences.
4.) Oracle's license NDA makes exchanging experience harder.

So as an endeffect, the limited number of playing grounds (#2 above)
keeps hourly rates for DBAs high. Oracle's NDA limits secondary
knowledge effects, so in effect it keeps the price for Oracle knowhow
potentially even higher.

Or put bluntly, the NDA mindset benefits completly and only Oracle, and
is a clear drawback for customers. It makes Oracle-supplied consultants
"gods", no matter how much hot air they produce. They've got the benefit
of having internal peer knowledge, and as consumer there is not much
that I can do counter it. I'm not even allowed to document externally
the pitfalls and experiences I've made, so the next poor sob will walk
on the same landmine.

Andreas
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