Saturday, September 8, 2007

EnterpriseDB Install Annoyance

This is just a little peeve of mine. When you install EnterpriseDB, you can choose either a full production license or the free EnterpriseDB Express version. On my laptop, I want to run the express version. I don't need it to use more than 1 gig of ram, more than 1 cpu or more than 6gb of disk. But I can't even install it because my hardware exceeds those specs.

Cannot install EnterpriseDB Express (EDBX)

Oracle Express Edition has the same limitations as EnterpriseDB Express (and so does Microsoft SQL Server Express), but Oracle (and MS) limit their hardware usage by building the limits into the software. You can install the software on hardware as big as you have and the software will limit itself while it is running.

The EnterpriseDB installer won't even let you install. That also has me wondering about using EnterpriseDB. Oracle allows a developer to download, install and use the full blown enterprise edition of Oracle without any kind of key or license beyond the developer license. It looks like developers can only freely use EnterpriseDB on low end software. I wonder how a developer developing for large databases could do so?

It just seems odd that open source developers complain about Oracle but Oracle has a more developer-friendly license than EnterpriseDB. I guess it is a side effect of the way EDB licenses for support vs for the software? I have a question open on the EDB support forum. I'll keep everyone posted on this topic.



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