[OSGeo-Discuss] "Free"

[Chip Mefford]

This is just one voice mumbling in the crowd.

But, this one voice views Oracle's so-called "free"
database Express Edition to be merely a 'loss leader'
distributed by Oracle with a few goals in mind.

One goal that this software achives, is that it allows
folks who are well versed in oracle database management
to deploy oracle for relatively trivial tasks that might
otherwise be hosted on something akin to mysql. This
is a good fit, because it allows folks with a good
skill set to not have to learn anything new. As long
as they don't have to learn anything new, they remain
loyal to Oracle.

Another goal, (and I think the main goal) is to get folks
used to Oracles apis, and doing sql 'the oracle way' to
keep folks from basing their projects on competing technologies
such as Postgresql.

In short, I'd recommend to anyone who would listen
to steer clear of odee, unless one is interested in
building apps to be hosted on Oracle.

If one in interested in continuing down the
FLOSS path, then it might be best to keep an eye
on the already excellent and FLOSS database engines
already out there. There are a few. And they are
good.

That's all.
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