Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
I have an slightly different perspective on this. I hope it will be a bit useful Background: I'm a senior developer for a consulting firm. I too have experience with DB/2, Oracle, Sybase, Adabase, and M$ SQL. In the last few years of work I've been moving from the technical side of things to be business side ( all together now: eew> ). I've been following PostgreSQL for a couple of years now. Absolutely love it. I have never implemented it on a business project, though. Not by any personal desire to use or not to use it. Usually the db choice is out of my hands. I cannot say personally that PostgreSQL support is amazing - ( once again, no experience at all to draw on ), however, I've been following the lists closely enough over the last few years that I believe the statement to be accurate. I can say that support services from the other vendors really aren't all that spectacular. Perspective: There is one factor to database choice that I haven't seen listed here. Culpability legal retribution. I'm not a lawyer, and don't claim to be - so I welcome any corrections to the accuracy of the following. Regardless of its' legal accuracy, I can vouch for the common belief in the following thought by corporate I.T. management. Any corporation, whether privately or publicly held, has various legal obligations to it's shareholders. Executive officers share in both the financial rewards of a successful company and in the legal responsibility that the corporation has to it's shareholders. If a catastrophic software failure results in a high percentage of lost revenue, a corporation might be able to seek monetary compensation from a commercial vendor. They could even be taken to court - depending upon licensing, product descriptions, promises made in product literature, etc. For cases like open source projects, like PostgreSQL, there is no legal recourse available. So - in the extreme case, if commercial Vendor V's database blows chunks, and causes company B to loose a lot of money. If Company B can prove that the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Vendor V, Company C can sue Vendor V's a** off. Executive management isn't at fault - because they have performed due diligence and have forged a partnership with vendor V who has a legal responsibility for the claims of their product. If, however, the database was PostgreSQL, then Company C has no legal recourse. Executive management has personally taken all responsibility for any catastrophic software failures, and therefore have put themselves in quite a precarious situation. No one else to take the blame but them! Now frankly I know that the above scenario is extreme. I was rolling my eyes while *writing* it. But the truth is that these are the kinds of things that technical auditors would report to a Board of Directors. There is nothing wrong with executive management choosing to assume risk (outside of corporate politics, that is ). Many savvy members of management realize that the real risk is quite low. Of course, the comfort level goes way up when the database is supporting a non-vital business process - or a process that is several steps away from the revenue stream. Still - imagine a database system with data and transactional volume the size of Google. In this case the volume of updates inserts is much higher. Now this database is a companies' main source of revenue ( again, extreme, but we're talking examples ). Would you blame a corporate exec if he wasn't willing to place his own personal assets on the line by choosing PostgreSQL over Oracle? BTW - Oracle other commercial vendors handle these contingencies by buying insurance policies. If the above situation had occurred and Oracle was the vendor, then the two companies would most likely settle out of court by dealing with the insurer. I dunno exactly how the claims process works on such a beast, but I know that such policies are purchased ( and you thought the annual support fee was just to cover the support staff's salaries?). Maybe Oracle would file a claim, an adjuster would visit Oracle's customer, etc? Closing: I think PostgreSQL is a great database. I haven't explored it's good and bad points thoroughly enough to know what applications it serves best, and where it's weakest. I do hope to use it in enough scenarios to find out. I hope a lawyer reads this and tells me that regardless of what management thinks is true, the above is hog-wash. Until someone does, I can't ignore the fact that a commercial vendor has a legal responsibility to support the claims of their product, while an open source group does not. I think PostgreSQL specifically keeps all of their claims legitimate and reasonable, but that doesn't change the fact that if someone makes an honest mistake, there is nothing that can be done *legally* to make you correct your mistake or pay for the damage it caused. Andrew Sullivan wrote: Followup set to -advocacy On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 12:01:18PM -0700, Dann Corbit
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
Hmmm... I think this is a common fallacy. It's like arguing that if windoze crashes and you lose important data then you have some sort of legal recourse against Microsoft. Ever read one of their EULAs? $10 says that Oracle's license grants them absolute immunity to any kind of damages claim. Chris --- Tim Hart Wrote: If a catastrophic software failure results in a high percentage of lost revenue, a corporation might be able to seek monetary compensation from a commercial vendor. They could even be taken to court - depending upon licensing, product descriptions, promises made in product literature, etc. For cases like open source projects, like PostgreSQL, there is no legal recourse available. So - in the extreme case, if commercial Vendor V's database blows chunks, and causes company B to loose a lot of money. If Company B can prove that the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Vendor V, Company C can sue Vendor V's a** off. Executive management isn't at fault - because they have performed due diligence and have forged a partnership with vendor V who has a legal responsibility for the claims of their product. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
-Original Message- From: Christopher Kings-Lynne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 27 June 2002 08:08 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tim Hart Cc: Andrew Sullivan; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation) Hmmm... I think this is a common fallacy. It's like arguing that if windoze crashes and you lose important data then you have some sort of legal recourse against Microsoft. Ever read one of their EULAs? $10 says that Oracle's license grants them absolute immunity to any kind of damages claim. I'm inclined to agree, though if it were the case, just buy Red Hat Database. Regards, Dave. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
Could very well be. As I said, I'm not a lawyer. I do know that depending upon the laws in a region, EULAs can be proven to be legally invalid. I do personally find it hard to believe that Oracle could be legally immune from *all* damages claims. In practice proving fault could be very hard to do ( It was the DBA's fault - incorrect configuration, or The OS has a bug in it), but in general when a fee is paid for a good or service, there is an implied legal contract that at times can supercede any EULA. The good or service provider has some legal responsibility for the accuracy of their claims regarding the service provided, or the functionality of the project delivered. For example, the only clause that Ford Motor company could use in a sales contract that would absolve them from lemon laws is basically The product you are buying is a lemon. Your point is taken, though - I don't think one could succesfully sue Microsoft if Windows crashes from time to time. However, if M$ promises that product X is a complete COTS datacenter, and you buy X and find that X is nowhere near stable as the industry norm, you have a legal case - both for the cost of the product and in the resulting lost revenue. I probably failed to convey in my initial post that I don't think the scenario is likely. Building and maintaining a db app involves technical talent on the part of the client, reliable hardware, networking, appropriate facilities, blah, blah, blah. So it's likely that blame can't be placed on one thing - and no single fault is probably large enough to be outside the industry norms for reliability of the product. I was merely trying to convey managements mindset. I feel the thinking is flawed as well. On Thursday, 27, 2002, at 01:08AM, Christopher Kings-Lynne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmmm... I think this is a common fallacy. It's like arguing that if windoze crashes and you lose important data then you have some sort of legal recourse against Microsoft. Ever read one of their EULAs? $10 says that Oracle's license grants them absolute immunity to any kind of damages claim. Chris --- Tim Hart Wrote: If a catastrophic software failure results in a high percentage of lost revenue, a corporation might be able to seek monetary compensation from a commercial vendor. They could even be taken to court - depending upon licensing, product descriptions, promises made in product literature, etc. For cases like open source projects, like PostgreSQL, there is no legal recourse available. So - in the extreme case, if commercial Vendor V's database blows chunks, and causes company B to loose a lot of money. If Company B can prove that the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Vendor V, Company C can sue Vendor V's a** off. Executive management isn't at fault - because they have performed due diligence and have forged a partnership with vendor V who has a legal responsibility for the claims of their product. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
Tim, If a catastrophic software failure results in a high percentage of lost revenue, a corporation might be able to seek monetary compensation from a commercial vendor. They could even be taken to court - depending upon licensing, product descriptions, promises made in product literature, etc. For cases like open source projects, like PostgreSQL, there is no legal recourse available. Well, there's the perception and the reality. I can't argue that company lawyers and auditors will *not* make the above argument; they very well may, especially if they are personally pro-MS or pro-Oracle. You may be on to something there. However, the argument is hogwash from a practical perspective. In pratice, it is nearly impossible to sue a company for bad software (witness various class actions against Microsoft). SO much so that one of the hottest-debated portions of the vastly flawed UCITA is software liability and lemon laws. Plus in some states, the vendor's EULA (which always disclaims secondary liability) is more powerful than local consumer law. Or from a financial perspective: An enterprise MS SQL 2000 user can expect to pay, under Licensing 6.0, about $10,000 - $20,000 a year in licnesing fees -- *not including any support*. Just $2000-$5000 buys you a pretty good $10 million software failure insurance policy. Do the math. As I said, I don't disreagard your argument. Just because it's hogwash doesn't mean that people don't believe it. -Josh Berkus ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
On Thursday, 27, 2002, at 10:07AM, Josh Berkus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Or from a financial perspective: An enterprise MS SQL 2000 user can expect to pay, under Licensing 6.0, about $10,000 - $20,000 a year in licnesing fees -- *not including any support*. Just $2000-$5000 buys you a pretty good $10 million software failure insurance policy. Do the math. -Josh Berkus The statement above has brought something to light that I had never really considered... Will an insurance company issue a software failure policy against PostgreSQL? If so, that may help me in my own struggles to convince managment that they're current approach to mitigating their risk is not only flawed, but *financially impracticle*. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Support (was: Democracy and organisation)
Is this sort of like Oracle guaranteeing its uncrackable, but as soon as someone comes to them to prove it is, Oracle's response is but DBA didn't enable the obscure security feature that can be found here, that is disabled by default? On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, Tim Hart wrote: Could very well be. As I said, I'm not a lawyer. I do know that depending upon the laws in a region, EULAs can be proven to be legally invalid. I do personally find it hard to believe that Oracle could be legally immune from *all* damages claims. In practice proving fault could be very hard to do ( It was the DBA's fault - incorrect configuration, or The OS has a bug in it), but in general when a fee is paid for a good or service, there is an implied legal contract that at times can supercede any EULA. The good or service provider has some legal responsibility for the accuracy of their claims regarding the service provided, or the functionality of the project delivered. For example, the only clause that Ford Motor company could use in a sales contract that would absolve them from lemon laws is basically The product you are buying is a lemon. Your point is taken, though - I don't think one could succesfully sue Microsoft if Windows crashes from time to time. However, if M$ promises that product X is a complete COTS datacenter, and you buy X and find that X is nowhere near stable as the industry norm, you have a legal case - both for the cost of the product and in the resulting lost revenue. I probably failed to convey in my initial post that I don't think the scenario is likely. Building and maintaining a db app involves technical talent on the part of the client, reliable hardware, networking, appropriate facilities, blah, blah, blah. So it's likely that blame can't be placed on one thing - and no single fault is probably large enough to be outside the industry norms for reliability of the product. I was merely trying to convey managements mindset. I feel the thinking is flawed as well. On Thursday, 27, 2002, at 01:08AM, Christopher Kings-Lynne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hmmm... I think this is a common fallacy. It's like arguing that if windoze crashes and you lose important data then you have some sort of legal recourse against Microsoft. Ever read one of their EULAs? $10 says that Oracle's license grants them absolute immunity to any kind of damages claim. Chris --- Tim Hart Wrote: If a catastrophic software failure results in a high percentage of lost revenue, a corporation might be able to seek monetary compensation from a commercial vendor. They could even be taken to court - depending upon licensing, product descriptions, promises made in product literature, etc. For cases like open source projects, like PostgreSQL, there is no legal recourse available. So - in the extreme case, if commercial Vendor V's database blows chunks, and causes company B to loose a lot of money. If Company B can prove that the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Vendor V, Company C can sue Vendor V's a** off. Executive management isn't at fault - because they have performed due diligence and have forged a partnership with vendor V who has a legal responsibility for the claims of their product. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
