Re: [cobalt-users] InterBase

[Bruce Timberlake <Bruce.Timberlake@xxxxxxx>]

> How does Interbase compare to MySQL?  I have always heard a lot about MySQL,
> but not as much about Interbase.  Why does Cobalt ship with Interbase rather
> than MySQL?

Interbase is a commercial-strength database system.  It was closed source,
and sold for prices like Sybase and Informix for a long time (several
thousand dollars for licenses, etc).  Borland caught the open source bug,
and decided to release it.  Cobalt was actually the first platform it was
launched on - the open source stuff ended up going through the day before
we launched the RaQ4 (tense times in Mtn View over that one, let me tell
you).

For "real" database applications, Interbase would be tough to beat. 
PostgreSQL is also pretty decent.  MySQL is fast, but lacks some features
that most people consider essential in "real" database management systems:
transactions, subqueries, stored procedures, etc.  There are ways to
accomplish some of those with newer versions of MySQL... 

At the same time Interbase was being "open sourced", MySQL hadn't been GPLd
yet, so we would have had to pay licensing costs to MySQL AB if we included
it on the product (at least, that's what engineering told us at the time). 
Now that MySQL is GPLd we do include it on current products (Qube 3+, RaQ
550).  There are no resources internally to release a MySQL PKG for RaQ4;
that's why Taco's on pkgmaster.com is so helpful to people who don't want
to install it from RPMs or source at the command line.

The open source support for Interbase has never taken off like Borland
hoped it would. Someone (Borland?) has a product called Phoenix, I think,
which is based on the Interbase code, but is "owned" by someone else.  You
might check into that, as development and support is probably happening
faster there than on actual Interbase from Borland.  (Seems to me like
Borland GPLd Interbase and then just dumped it.)

> I'll probably end up installing the MySQL pkg, but I thought I'd get your
> opinions on this anyways.

A lot of it is a holy war, like vi vs emacs, KDE vs GNOME, etc.  For basic
database-backed sites, MySQL is fine.  But if I was building an ecommerce
system, etc, I'd personally want a DB like PostgreSQL or Interbase that had
"real" transaction support, etc, to ensure validity of my data and so
forth.

--
Bruce Timberlake
Sun Cobalt Technology Engineer
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

E: bruce.timberlake@xxxxxxx
T: 877-718-3569 / x69369