PostgreSQL could replace MySQL

The recent edition of PC Magazine, which now does not come in print but can be browsed in digital through Zinio brings us some interesting reflections to chew on a Thursday football rubber.

I was struck by a theme that in Spanish translates as What's wrong with LAMP? referring (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), systems on which much is based on the success of the Internet.

In the article is by John C. Dvorak makes a chew among the risks that MySQL runs after the acquisition by SUN / Oracle and the changes that the GNU GPL license is making. Between the lines, the author assures that the problem of free licenses is not ethical but commercial, proposing that it may not be sustainable over time. Although extremist, he is still right if we remember that our preferred spatial database engine (PostGIS), which is an adaptation of functionalities to the GIS environment, was a failed abort for 8 years like Postgres but now it is very promising like PostgreSQL (but with BSD license).

Some geofumados friends, every time I mention GPL to them, they look at me as they were in front of the image of “the unborn” for their disappointment that everything they do would become public domain; but they do support BSD licensing, which they call "complete freedom" because the author of a smoke has as much freedom as to donate it to the community or sell his effort through a private license. For many the issue could be laughable, at this point serious lawsuits have been fought and their lawyers have had to learn a lot about technology to be able to read and understand well the risks of a mixture between the public domain and the private domain.

Dvorak throws some unhealthy judgments at Oracle, who could if he wanted to kill the lives of many who have already invested money in the most popular database on the web. Then it ensures that PostgreSQL would be the replacement and that its BSD license favors it wherever we want to see it. Apart from making a slight mistake (he calls it PostgrSQL), it seemed interesting to me, maybe from the space side it will benefit us after our interest in PostGIS that has already walked pretty.

The magazine can be browsed on Zinio. Besides, it brings some articles of interest such as:

• The risks of Twitter
• When a netbook is not enough
• The risks of Craiglist in their sexual classifieds
• Apple's iPad could kill Amazon's Kindle
• Facebook vs. Twitter
• The unofficial Gmail guide
• In the Spanish version Nadia talks about the Match, very good.