Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: SGVLLUG Oracle and Informix on Linux]

>> Oracle now comes along and says that it is going to have a
>> Linux-binary distribution available. So? How much is that binary
>> going to cost? And what sort of licensing is provided?

JohnDz> What version of Linux? What Platform ? Full featured?

I was asking myself the same question.

JohnDz> Don't kid yourselves about Oracle...
JohnDz> There are countless versions of Linux out there, running on
JohnDz> every platform ever invented.

Without starting a Linux-advocacy debate, I take exception to the
above statement :) I am under the impression that many of those Linux
ports are still rather experimental, and that there are still zillions
(!) of architectures that /don't/ yet have a Linux port. Please
educate me if I am wrong!

\begin{rant}

One of the reasons I work with NetBSD is that it has /stable/ ports to
more than a dozen different architectures (CPUs) and even more
platforms (types of machines)! I use two of them: i386 and MIPS/PMAX,
with a third in the running (waiting for some hardware): Mac68K.

I realise that there are people running Linux on Intel-based palmtops,
but that sort of thing is also happening with both NetBSD and FreeBSD.
Fair enough, Linux 2.x might have had much of the i386-specific guts
of Linux 1.x ripped out of it and replaced with more portable innards,
but NetBSD was built with that portability and code cleanliness from
the ground up! Having looked at the source code for large chunks of
Linux and that for equivalent chunks of NetBSD, I know without a
shadow of a doubt which way I choose to favour!

Enough said, I really don't want to start a useless advocacy debate, I
acknowledge that the Linux phenomenon is fabulous---every bit as
fabulous as NetBSD's implementation---yet I feel that the rest of the
free UNIX community is neglected when Linux gets all the spotlight!

\end{rant}

PostgreSQL runs quite nicely on NetBSD, thank you very much, though I
have not yet the time nor the requirement to stress it very much---I
/did/ have a go with the embedded-SQL C preprocessor, and I conclude
from that experience that in comparison against the embedded-SQL
preprocessor for the InterBase product, ecpg produces very elegant C,
and is, in many ways, a far nicer tool. On the other hand, the
InterBase tool implements a few more facilities, and as the DB of
choice for the project on which I am working those facilities had
precedence over my developing against PostgreSQL :(

JohnDz> Oracle would have to release source code ( ha ha) to be a true
JohnDz> linux port. I run LinuxPPC on a power mac, and if they port to
JohnDz> this then I will eat a huge plate of crow.

Here, here!

--Kevin.