[LINK] Linux sheds its amateur image

[Craig Sanders]

On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 09:03:47AM +1100, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> Linux sheds its amateur image
> Eric Wilson
> MARCH 14, 2006
> The Australian
> http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,18421886%5E15397%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
> 
> THE stereotype of free open-source software running on recycled hardware is
> fast disappearing as businesses choose it over proprietary systems.
> 
> The venerable LAMP stack - a Linux operating system, Apache Web server, MySQL
> database and the PHP programming language - [...]

unfortunately, O'Reilly jumped on the wrong bandwagon by pushing MySQL
(a toy database whose only real advantage - speed - disappears as soon
as you use any of the tacked-on afterthought features expected of a real
database, like transactions, foreign keys, views, stored procedures,
triggers) and PHP (aka "a minimalist subset of perl for dummies, without
CPAN or anything like it").

"LAMP" makes a better acronym, but "LAPP" (Linux, Apache, Perl,
Postgresql) uses much better software.


actually, PHP isn't that bad - but anyone capable of programming in PHP
is also capable of programming in Perl (the syntax is quite similar)
and that gives access to the thousands of perl libraries and modules in
CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network)....and tools like embperl
or HTML::Mason give the ability to embed program code directly in web
pages, which is the only really nice feature of PHP.


> [...]
> SugarCRM can be downloaded free of charge, with the commercial
> open-source vendor supplying support and extra features to
> subscribers.
>
> The subscribers have access to the source code and the extra features,
> but are not permitted to distribute it.

in that case, it's NOT Open Source. the definition of Open Source
requires that it be licensed so that anyone is permitted to redistribute
the source code. if they can't do that, then it does not qualify as open
source.



> Sugar's biggest deal is with US tax consultants BDO Seidman - a
> 9000seat deployment to be rolled out over the next two years - with
> data stored in a MySQL open-source database.

i find it incredible that ANYONE would choose to store financial
data in a toy like mysql. the developers still don't even understand
the importance of ACID-compliance....they dismiss the concept as an
unneccessary frivol rather than the basis of database reliability,
and pretend that certain features that really MUST be implemented in
the database backend (such as transactions, referential integrity,
constraints) can be reliably emulated in the front-end (the application
itself).

(yes, i know mysql has some of these things now, as optional features.
they're tacked-on afterthoughts, and poorly implemented for the most
part, when they should have been in the design from the beginning. with
the final result being that mysql is still a toy but not even a very
fast toy any more - just a slow toy pretending to be a real db)

mysql is OK for non-critical data, especially if if it is read-mostly
(i.e. very few writes and lots of reads - mysql's much-touted and
greatly exaggerated speed advantage disappears when the usage pattern
includes more than a tiny percentage of writes)....e.g. an address book.
but it can not be trusted for anything important.

the one thing that mysql does vastly better than postgresql (and other
open source real databases) is marketing and self-promotion.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)