Return to the Press page

Vyatta – Linux & Open Source Alternative to Cisco – Advanced Routing, Firewall, VPN, QoS..
Free Download ->

LK2008: The values of the Linux community

LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 9, 2008

LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 2, 2008

Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ

db.* proves it's a database survivor (NewsForge)

[Posted July 11, 2005 by cook]

NewsForge looks at the history of db.*, a proprietary database turned open-source. "db.* has been in the market for more than 20 years. Originally, it was a proprietary product called dbVista developed by a company called Raima. During the dot-com boom, it was acquired by a company called Centura and released into open source under a modified Mozilla license. Centura spent millions of dollars to bring the code base up to standards, including overhauling the documentation. However, in 2001, Centura dot-bombed and went belly up, leaving db.* orphaned. Unlike an orphaned proprietary product though, another company could -- and did -- step in."

(Log in to post comments)

license ?

Posted Jul 14, 2005 8:49 UTC (Thu) by airman (subscriber, #7341) [Link]

Looks nice, but the license is quite opaque. I'm not sure I can use this product at work without subscribing to this Club ITIA thingy. I think I'll stick with postgres for now, but I would not say no to better performance and less fonctionality...

db.* proves it's a database survivor (NewsForge)

Posted Jul 23, 2005 4:23 UTC (Sat) by dmag (subscriber, #17775) [Link]

I remember Raima. I tried their database on a Netware server once. It crashed left and right. They sent me a few updates, but they didn't work either. I just threw it all away. Then they had the nerve to ask for their "eval copy" back. I told them they had to pay for shipping (thick useless manuals), and they eventually went away. (Presumably, the open source version is better.)