Subj : Re: Free Oracle (was: Resume questions, how convey? (was: How much...)) To : comp.programming,comp.lang.java.programmer From : John B. Matthews Date : Sun Sep 18 2005 05:29 pm [Newsgroups trimmed] In article , Juha Laiho wrote: > rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) said: > >> From: Tim X > >> for development (i.e. not to be sold) purposes, you can get a free > >> copy of Oracle. The 10g version for Linux is quite nice. > > Note, not just "not to be sold". It is "not to be used in a production > environment" -- and even the conditions for the development use > are rather strict; if I recall correctly, the Oracle instance is > not to be utilised by more than two persons (and this doesn't mean > simultaneous access; this means access at all -- f.ex. the limit > is "you and your boss", but not "you, a co-worker and your boss"). > So, if you're building a web-application on top of this developer > Oracle, you can only have one tester in addition to yourself. Strict yes, but I don't see this limitation in the license dated 03/09/05. Perhaps you were thinking of "...nontransferable limited license to use the programs only for the purpose of developing a single prototype of your application." Of course, IANAL. In addition to no use for "your own internal data processing or for any commercial or production purposes," some perfectly reasonable (but compelling) limits include: - You may not disclose results of any program benchmark tests without Oracle's prior consent; [even if it's good news? :-] - Oracle may audit your use of the programs. I would encourage those interested to look at Oracle Technology Network (sign-up required to download): > There's no technical limit to this, however - the limit is purely > contractual. Indeed, one of the joys of using Oracle is no $%^# dongles, license keys or calls home. Of course, you've already agreed to be audited, so you have a compelling reason to be scrupulous:-) > >This is the first I've ever heard of such. All the information I got > >previously was that Oracle is the high-end commercial RDBS that hardly > >anybody can afford and so there's no way they'd give it away for free. > > Developer distributions for Oracle databases have been available for > download at Oracle Technet for at least three years now. I think > the available platforms are the same as for commercial distributions. > Note though, you may not get an up-to-date version, and updates and > patches are only available for customers with an existing support > contract. > > >Is there a free version that works on FreeBSD Unix? > > Not supported, at least. You could get it working with some kind > of Linux emulation environment on FBSD, but no guarantees. > > >If the whole things occupies less than ten megabytes, I could install > >it on my personal shell account. > > Hmm.. the download for Oracle 10gRel2 for Linux is a 600MB .zip file. > Then there's a few hundred more megs of auxiliary material. No, > Oracle is neither small nor lightweight -- and I'd guess many of > the most simple queries with just a handful of concurrent users > might run faster with some other DB engine. It's big databases, > huge amount of concurrent usage, and complex database schemas > combined with complex queries which get a benefit from Oracle. > > And even there you need a DBA who knows his/her trade to keep it > running smoothly (ok, should be easier with the 9i/10g versions, > but was this way at least still with 8i versions). With default > installation/db setup at least 8i is far from fantastic. A talented DBA is invaluable, but a recent default install of 10g on Windows 2003 Server went unexpectedly smoothly. I had only slightly more trouble with 9i on Mac OS X, while 8i on RedHat 9 linux definitely required support. -- John jmatthews at wright dot edu www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/ .