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Date:      Tue, 24 Oct 2000 17:52:10 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        "Doug Poland" <doug@polands.org>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   RE: FreeBSD v Linux
Message-ID:  <14838.4762.613284.404127@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <109004430@toto.iv>

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Doug Poland writes:
> Background:
> I was a Sun/Solaris user in the early '90's when 
> the big RDBMS/GIS/CAD vendors were all running on
> the various Unix's (before intel Unix).  Supporting 
> all these flavors for them was a nightmare and when 
> NT became a viable platform, they started jumping
> ship.  The vendors want fewer platforms to support,
> not more.

Background: I was a Sun/Solaris/AIX/Ultrix/<others> sysadmin at one of
the big RDBMS vendors back then (and freelanced for a second, but we
don't talk about that).

The vendors don't want fewer platforms to support, they want
*profitable* platforms to support. They didn't "jump ship" to NT; they
did an NT port because customers *wanted* it. NT sales pretty quickly
passed Unix (combined) sales, but didn't catch up with VMS sales.

Neither one was willing to take on a port without some real indication
that there would be lots of customers, or a single customer with
enough money to front the development and support costs (that did
happen every once and a while - a hardware vendor wanting a port for
their platform, for instance).

> Oracle is probably the exception here as they've
> always used their multi-platform user base as a
> selling advantage.  That said, the user-base of
> Linux has grown to a point where Oracle decided
> it was profitable or they felt they had to be
> on that platform.

Oracle, Informix and Ingres (whatever CA is calling it these days)
were all distributing Linux versions at one point or another. I don't
remember if Sybase made the list, but it wouldn't surprise me.

> IF the BSD world could get a major RDBMS vendor
> to release a native BSD port, it would be a 
> tremendous boost for the BSD world.  However,
> we, as the database BSD world, must convince
> them that it's in they're best interest to 
> port to BSD.  This means being ready and able
> to pay for the software and support.  

jkh is publicly stating that he recommends that vendors support
FreeBSD by testing their Linux port against FreeBSD's Linux emulation
mode. That sort of kills that as a project. Personally, I think that
FreeBSD's Linux emulation makes a good litmus test for "Do I have an
distribution dependencies in my application", and encourage vendors to
use it as such.

> So if you're interested in Oracle for BSD, 
> contact them and tell them you're ready to
> pay for the product on BSD and maybe, someday,
> when enough of us have done that, we'll see
> it.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Doug 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of James Wilde
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 04:00
> > To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
> > Subject: RE: FreeBSD v Linux
> > 
> > 
> > I've been following this thread and I've checked the Oracle and FreeBSD
> > sites.  And I've discovered that Oracle is not released in a 
> > FreeBSD version
> > but is released in a Linux version which - apparently - runs even 
> > better on
> > FreeBSD with Linux emulation.  Unfortunately that's not a 
> > combination likely
> > to have an immediate appeal to people concerned with operational
> > reliability.  And since they use the Oracle DBMS, TPTB at my new job have
> > opted for Sun Solaris.
> > 
> > However, they have made an exception.  Since I said I was 
> > familiar (!) with
> > FreeBSD they have suggested that, since they are now getting too 
> > big to use
> > hosts for name resolution, my first project when I start with them next
> > month will be to set up a name server running on FreeBSD.
> > 
> > So my question is does anyone know whether/when Oracle plans a FreeBSD
> > version?
> > 
> > mvh/regards
> > 
> > James
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
> 
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