From my understanding of the license for Postgresql, there is no
licensing fees as long as you are not selling it yourself for a profit.
There are also free platforms to build your application on. I am myself
exploring the use of Centos with php, postgresql, apache with ssl
running as a secure stable platform for my customer. I think you can
do this all for free. meaning just charging for the time you use to
develop and support the application. It is not a fat client solution
and you will have to learn the environment, but from my exploring, this
seems to be a very viable option. Again, I have to research things such
as report writing and the like. Hope we get other opinions on this. I
am at this juncture myself.
Aaron Smith wrote:
I did a quick search on the mailing list and didn’t really find my
answer, so I am posting it to this list…
I’d like to apologize for my lack in understanding all this license
stuff. I am not an open source developer, I am a commercial developer,
so this is the first time I have even looked to use open source
software at all.
We are a small company that develops specialized applications. We use
a development language that has its own shared file database (like
access). This is less than ideal in a lot of cases. We don’t really
charge for our software, we charge for the time we take to make the
software. Essentially, we have no product, we have a service. However,
we are a commercial for-profit entity. We have found our built in
database to be problematic and prone to index corruption. Plus the
fact when people ask us what we use, we get funny looks, and sometimes
told we can’t install that on their server because they have never
heard of it before.
We started to look at alternatives. One of those was the MSDE from
Microsoft. I started a conversion of a large customer only to find out
that we hit the 2 gig limit before it even got installed (converted
their current data). We started to look at prices of the full version
of SQL Server and the pricing is going to put it out of reach for some
of our customers. The larger ones will have no problem paying for it,
but most of our customers are small businesses that just can’t afford
it. I realize it’s a small price to pay, but you also have to realize
that with our development language, we have to charge our end users a
per user runtime fee (that gets paid to the company that makes our
development language) and a per user fee to connect to any database
other than the default (again, to the company that made our
development language). By the time we are done, a 25 user system has a
per user cost of over $5,000 for the database and the runtime fees.
Then when you tack on our fees for software modifications, this just
put it out of reach for the smaller customers. Also keep in mind; we
are in process of dumping our current language for VB.Net, simply
because of these stupid fees that our customers have to pay to the
company that wrote our development environment.
We are looking for alternatives that are reliable, fairly fast, and
easy to maintain. We immediately thought of MySQL, but the commercial
licenses have now gone to an annual subscription structure. The basic
version is fairly cheap, and very reasonable. However, the data
connector that we have to pay for to get MySQL access will cost our
end users $3500 for a 25 user system. On the other hand, we can use an
ODBC connector for $1,000, which puts it back into the somewhat
affordable range. Once it’s moved to VB.Net, all of these fees will be
eliminated, but that is pretty far off.
This brings me here. I have heard of PostGreSQL, so it’s not new to
me. But all this licensing is. And maybe you can help get some
clarification for the MySQL licensing too.
We will not be selling the database software. We may install it for
them, though. In fact, most of the time, we will be the ones to
install it, and we charge for that time. Our customers are very aware
that we did not write it, nor are we selling it. Even if they are to
purchase SQL Server, they are the ones to purchase it directly, not
us. We purchase the connectivity kits that we use to connect to the
database, and then pass that cost on to the customer. It is purchased
in their name with their information. We do not charge extra or tack
on any fees. We do it this way so that no screw ups are made… The
connectivity kit is the one that connects to the database; we connect
to the connectivity kit through our software.
Knowing all this, what do we need to purchase, what can we do and what
can’t we do? It’s hard getting a straight answer from anyone that is
why I am here. If we can’t do it, we won’t. If we can save our
customers some money while getting them really good options and
software, we would like to do that. But on the same token, we don’t to
do anything unfair or illegal.
Thank you for your time.
Aaron
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TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
match
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TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
