Open Source

Copyright © 2003 Patrick McDermott

UC BerkeleyExtension

pmcdermott@msn.com

Rules• Source Code is available• May use for Free or Commercial uses• Must pass along with same Licensing• Some vendors support, for a charge• “Sharing with Rules”

• Linus’s Law– Given Enough Eyeballs, All Bugs Are Shallow

• Linus Torvalds (Linus of Linux)

Cost Comparison

Published 2011:• Commercial MySQL @ $500 vs. $5,000 to

$40,00 for Oracle, DB2 or SQL Server• Annual $4,000 MySQL vs. $300,000 for

Oracle

ChecklistFeaturesSupportEase of UseStabilitySpeedTrainingLicensing

Actually, true of Any DB product…

Historical AltruismOpen Source“Harnessing the Power of Communities”Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities

– GNU/GPL General Public License– Linux/Apache

Historical Altruism– OED

– Meiji Japan– Amazon.com Reviewers– Wikipedia– YouTube– Bloggers

Winchester, Simon, the Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, New York: HarperCollins (0-06-017596-6), 1998.

Open Source & DB Management• Pool of Developers & Testers• Source Code available, Changes shared &

inspected• Not locked into a Vendor’s plans• Multiple Versions, Choose the one you like• No per seat licensing

Open Sores Disadvantages• Incomplete documentation• Specialized/Proprietary needs not covered• Open Source Licenses vary• “One size fits all”, features missing• No Certification Standards

• It has to interest some volunteers, usually solve a problem THEY have