MySQL license and revolution

[revolution at knowledgeworks.plus.com]

>I am a big fan of postgresql for other reasons, it is a far more 
>sophisitcated database.  I am an old SQL hack from big Unix days, and I 
>could not suffer under mySQL's simple implementation.  It may have 
>gotten better in the last few years, but I think postgres has moved 
>forward too.  If you want referential integrity, inner and outer joins, 
>etc, postgres is the ticket. 

... and indeed there is an other great open-source relational database - Firebird.

It has a history going back to mainframes, yet a tiny footprint and requires virtually no maintenance, and is (pound for pound) as SQL-92 compliant as PostgreSQL. It is available for Win32, Linux, Mac OSX, Darwin, FreeBSD, HPUX, Solaris, AIX (and WinCE, but it looks like there was not much interest in that!) (Perfect for Revolution apps, indeed in it's former life Firebird was often distributed as the database 'embedded' in standalone applications.)

There are a massive range of tools around for working with it (both "free as in beer" and commercial).

Firebird is not distributed under the GPL, but under the Interbase Public License (http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_ipl).  Use and distribution of the Firebird RDBMS is royalty-free according to the license, and any larger work in which it is incorporated does NOT itself fall under the IPL.  About a year ago I suggested on this forum that Runrev look into providing closer integration with Firebird but nothing much came of my suggestion.

Firebird is the open-source version of Interbase, maintained and developed by Borland.  Interbase is still available for purchase, which may be useful in some circumstances.

Regards, Bernard.