6 ms·

IvorySQL: Open-source Oracle-compatible PostgreSQL

195 points by flymetothemoon 4y ago

mberger 4y ago
This is amazing! Thank you so much for doing this!
cookiengineer 4y ago
This has such a huge potential to slay the dragon. Kudos!
pfix 4y ago
I don't get what this is. Is this a postgres fork? An extension? The documentation says it's Version 2 but the docs are rather lacking. Having something providing an "Oracle API" on Postgres would be awesome but not sure if this works like that?
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > IvorySQL has imported and enhanced the Orafce extension to add support for numerous Oracle compatibility features including built-in PACKAGES, data types, and conversion functions Sounds and looks like a fork to me. EnterpriseDB used to offer some Oracle compatibility built on Pg, as a fork IIRC. Don't see it on their site any more though. EDIT: Much thanks to replies with links to EDB.
  - asah 4y ago
    EDB PostgreSQL is still very much alive and Oracle compatibility is a big success among enterprises that have chosen to migrate and need to smooth the process.
  - sbuttgereit 4y ago
    That was the whole hook for EnterpriseDB. They still sell the product: https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-enterprise https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-enterprise The difference here is that the EnterpriseDB product is not open source.
    - chasil 4y ago
      IBM Db/2 also bought it, and uses it to implement SQL/PSM. https://www.enterprisedb.com/resources/ibmr-puts-oracle-sword-enterprisedb https://www.enterprisedb.com/resources/ibmr-puts-oracle-swor...
  - skissane 4y ago
    Does it need to be a fork, as opposed to just an extension? I understand why upstream Postgres might not want to put Oracle compatibility in the core, since it would be adding a lot of crud which only a minority of people would benefit from. However, making sure the Postgres core has the extension points necessary to support extensions providing compatibility with Oracle (or DB2, MSSQL, MySQL, etc), is something they might be more willing to entertain.
    - chasil 4y ago
      The postgres 15 manual has a chapter on Oracle compatibility. I don't know where to find it on their website, but the docs RPM that they provide bundles the PDF.
      - skissane 4y ago
        You are probably thinking of ECPG's "Oracle compatibility mode", which makes it behave more like Oracle Pro*C - https://www.postgresql.org/docs/15/ecpg-oracle-compat.html https://www.postgresql.org/docs/15/ecpg-oracle-compat.html However, few people actually use Pro*C nowadays. I spent almost 10 years working for Oracle, and I never once came across anybody using it. I think almost all use of it is in legacy applications which date back to the 1980s, first half of the 1990s at the latest. Obviously still enough use for Oracle to keep on supporting it, even with some occasional minor enhancements, but rather fringe all the same. I don't think many people use ECPG either. I'm sure some people must, but I myself have never seen it. Probably most use is in porting existing applications from Oracle Pro*C, or its equivalents such as Informix E/SQL. Actually, it is interesting to observe that the section on ECPG's Informix compatibility mode is a lot longer than the Oracle equivalent. I don't know if that's because less compatibility is required (maybe Pro*C is closer to ECPG already), or if that's because Informix compatibility has received more investment.
        thorin 4y ago
        I've used pro* C for a couple of things (in banking and utilties, 1990s) where people wanted interactive batch functionality for something more complex than you'd generally put in a shell script. I think most of the pro* C usage came from pre Oracle 7 when PL/SQL didn't exist.
  - tamasnet 4y ago
    Their Oracle compatibility is still a thing, at least commercially: https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-postgres-advanced-server https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-postgres-advanced-...
  - znpy 4y ago
    That sounds like the description of a distribution of postgresql to me. Think of a gnu/linux distro, that gives you some pre-packaged software built with an intended goal (more or less general) and according to a certain set of opinions.
  - rst 4y ago
    Also, their docs leave me wondering about the level of Oracle compatibility they're claiming. Their page on the subject, https://www.ivorysql.org/docs/compatibillity_features/hierarchical/ https://www.ivorysql.org/docs/compatibillity_features/hierar... , lists a bunch of immediate sore points -- date types and functions, the CONNECT BY query syntax, etc. But there are other things Oracle supports that are not listed, and still potentially serious stumbling blocks -- "fast" (incremental) automatic refresh of materialized views, IGNORE NULLS in window functions, and so forth. Oddly, I'd take their compatibility claims more seriously if they were more clearly up-front about the limits.
    - knutwannheden 4y ago
      Am I one of the only developers who actually likes the CONNECT BY queries? Often I think they are a very succinct alternative to recursive CTEs.
    - chasil 4y ago
      I'll just fire this up, create some external tables, and use the v7 join syntax to write out my data with utl_file.
- Alupis 4y ago
  Can someone elaborate on what specifically something like this would be used for? I would imagine if you're going through the pain of migrating off Oracle, picking something like IvorySQL is just a half-measure. Why not just make the switch to PostgreSQL (or other) and be done with worrying about compatibility? How long will this project last, and how great will the compatibility actually be - is it a drop-in replacement? Most folks use ORM's these days too - making switching databases simple (although not always trivial). So why does this need to exist?
  - kijin 4y ago
    Full migration can take months if not years. Meanwhile, a drop-in replacement will allow you to stop paying Oracle immediately. I wouldn't be too optimistic about ORM usage in the kinds of organizations that chose Oracle in the first place.
  - Schnitz 4y ago
    Oracle is expensive. Salesforce has been developing something similar internally for years to replace Oracle.
    - jamesfinlayson 4y ago
      So did Amazon/AWS I think.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    If you're using an ORM then you're by default using the database fairly generically. I'd ask why you are paying for any commercial DB in that case. Organizations who committed to and paid for Oracle are probably using a lot of the features that are unique to Oracle. Or they have a lot of legacy that is. If IvorySQL can take all their custom plsql packages and ETL batch jobs and run them without changes that's a big win. It's not clear to me that it really can do that, though.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      > It's not clear to me that it really can do that, though. It would seem exceedingly foolhardy to put all your eggs into, what is essentially a compatibility shim layer/plugin, that may or may not actually be compatible with Oracle or all of Oracle. The company behind it also is an unknown (to me at least) - HiGo[1]. So, IvorySQL is FOSS and free (as in beer) - but what happens if some feature doesn't actually work like advertised? Or something isn't implemented yet? Now you're paying HiGo for support instead of Oracle - although I'd trust Oracle's product a lot more personally. > I'd ask why you are paying for any commercial DB in that case. People pay for commercial DB's for a lot of reasons - including having someone to call at 3am when things go bad. Look at how prevalent SQL Server is - most of the deployments I've seen are because the company simply decided they will use SQL Server for everything (ie, not a technical reason). [1] https://www.highgo.ca/ https://www.highgo.ca/
vladsanchez 4y ago
It will be a success when it fully supports, Object Types, Packages, Autonomous transactions, PL/SQL, and BULK Collect Operations among other features.
- fredsmith219 4y ago
  That was my question. Is it compatible with PL/SQL? And how is the performance?
  - cafard 4y ago
    Somebody makes a Postgres variant that supports not only PL/SQL, but supplies a number of the standard DBMS_xyz packages. EnterpriseDB?
    - martintietz 4y ago
      Yes, EDB's Advanced Server provides that: https://get.enterprisedb.com/docs/Database_Compatibility_for_Oracle_Developers_Built-in_Package_Guide_v11.pdf https://get.enterprisedb.com/docs/Database_Compatibility_for... (pp. 30 ff.).
- forinti 4y ago
  Oracle Apex will have to be considered too. It's undeniably a good platform for developing applications and firms get hooked on it.
rnd0 4y ago
Wiped out by Oracle's legal team (patents, whatever) in 4...3...2...
- u320 4y ago
  They haven't hit EnterpriseDB who have been doing the same thing, except not open source, since forever.
  - hans_castorp 4y ago
    To my knowledge IBM's DB2 too has an "Oracle compatibility" switch that makes it also support PL/SQL.
    - martintietz 4y ago
      Exactly. db2set DB2_COMPATIBILITY_VECTOR=ORA gives you Oracle compatibility. You can even get MySQL compatibility and I have actually used that once in the past.
- chasil 4y ago
  Were they going to wipe out the SQL/PSM standard that has been approved by ISO? "SQL/PSM is derived, seemingly directly, from Oracle's PL/SQL. Oracle developed PL/SQL and released it in 1991, basing the language on the US Department of Defense's Ada programming language." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL/PSM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL/PSM They can always wipe out the Ada programming language while they're at it.
- s3000 4y ago
  How can Oracle do it when they couldn't do it for the Java API?
  - zaphirplane 4y ago
    As a fact, There are 2 ways to “win” a legal Fight, one is to get the desired judgment the other is to make fighting the case prohibitively expensive for the other party
userbinator 4y ago
Great choice of name and logo.
nnurmanov 4y ago
Here is another approach from AWS https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/goodbye-microsoft-sql-server-hello-babelfish/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/goodbye-microsoft-sql-serve...
- okaram 4y ago
  But that one is for MS SQL Server, not Oracle
  - chasil 4y ago
    It's postgres, but implementing TDS. It is important to understand that the networking is not the server. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabular_Data_Stream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabular_Data_Stream I use freetds in many places. https://www.freetds.org/ https://www.freetds.org/ I don't think that the programming language inside Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server, known as Transact-SQL, has been implemented in postgres, but I could be wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transact-SQL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transact-SQL Microsoft does not implement SQL/PSM in SQL Server. They need to do so. Immediately.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I don't think that the programming language inside Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server, known as Transact-SQL, has been implemented in postgres You are wrong; from the Babelfish page: “With Babelfish, Aurora PostgreSQL now understands T-SQL, Microsoft SQL Server's proprietary SQL dialect, and supports the same communications protocol, so your apps that were originally written for SQL Server can now work with Aurora with fewer code changes.”
gavinray 4y ago
Wasn't this also possible open-source from AWS's "Babelfish" plugin?
supportlocal4h 4y ago
I want compatability in a whole different direction. Let's get really crazy and rip the db out from under vendor solutions. Let their app with its compiled in Oracle driver communicate with a Pg server. We'll completely void any support contract we have, but at least we'll be Oracle free! Can you imagine just swapping in Postgres under a Peoplesoft deployment? As long as you don't make me actually attempt it, it makes me chuckle.
- kiratp 4y ago
  The software license will still stop you from doing that. No business that would need Oracle will run Oracle software knowingly violating the license.
  - koolba 4y ago
    It’s also likely in violation of arcane copyright law. The oracle wire protocol includes a handshake procedure that sends a poem in one of the initial messages. It’s untested legal theory whether copying that poem in a new work (e.g. a new driver or compatability layer) would violate Oracle’s copyright on the poem. https://dacut.blogspot.com/2008/03/oracle-poetry.html https://dacut.blogspot.com/2008/03/oracle-poetry.html
    - quonn 4y ago
      Very interesting. But I think there are pretty clear rules that permit compatible implementation of wire protocols.
    - rtpg 4y ago
      Actually I’m pretty sure a lawsuit with Nintendo’s game boy drm (where you needed to have the logo in memory to boot) went to court and it was ruled that if working with the system required copying the copyrighted text then it’s fair use (US, long time ago and in a different but similar concept)
    - easton 4y ago
      Weird, Apple does a similar thing with macOS startup on Intel (and more recently, Rosetta on Linux). If the magic haiku isn’t given the OS won’t start. http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/docs/20120105_202426_apple_sealing.pdf http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/docs/20120105_202426... is when Apple tried to get the haiku protected as a trade secret Bonus fun fact: Once the “don’t steal Mac OS” kext is loaded, a longer poem is loaded into memory (at least, it was around Tiger): Your karma check for today: There once was was a user that whined his existing OS was so blind, he’d do better to pirate an OS that ran great but found his hardware declined. Please don’t steal Mac OS! Really, that’s way uncool. (C) Apple Computer, Inc. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-warns-off-os-pirates-with-a-poem/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-warns-off-os-pirates-wit...)
unixhero 4y ago
So will this support materialized views? That's a very nice Oracle SQL feature
- Justsignedup 4y ago
  Postgres has it https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/rules-materializedviews.html https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/rules-materializedvi...
  - ako 4y ago
    Not as nice as oracle, oracle provides auto refreshed materialized views that will be updated with every commit.
    - kabes 4y ago
      https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pg_ivm-10-released-2443/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pg_ivm-10-released-244...
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      Isn't that better accomplished as an ordinary view + an index (arguably, an "auto-refreshed materialized" store is an index)? AIUI, Postgres supports indexes on arbitrary expressions.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Justsignedup 4y ago
So correct me if I am mis-understanding... it has to be in oracle or pg compatibility mode, so effectively its just an oracle api replacement, but should more or less behave like oracle so the only primary benefit is you stop paying oracle because you just want to leave oracle? It doesn't exactly let you move away from oracle APIs though. It is a big win financially. So good on them, I hope it gets all the traction!
up2isomorphism 4y ago
What’s the point of doing some just for the sake of destroying other people’s business?
- nielsole 4y ago
  Did not find any obvious references as to who is backing this project, but it seems to be a Chinese software consultancy. https://www.highgo.ca/ https://www.highgo.ca/ > What’s the point of doing some just for the sake of destroying other people’s business? Apart from any potential ideological reasons related to open source, they are likely planning to support their own business by providing a compelling product.
- forinti 4y ago
  Oracle requires a lot of maintenance and is terribly buggy. And the documentation is not always complete. Postgresql, on the other hand, is dead simple to manage. It's my dream to move all my Oracle databases to Postgresql.
mdaniel 4y ago
I presume this still requires the postgres drivers to connect but then just accepts Oracle syntax once connected? That seems like a very specialized replacement case -- where I guess the app has a lot of complex reporting logic or a monster amount of stored procs that can't be changed, but the consuming app(s) can change drivers and exception handling for the PG ones

mberger 4y ago

This is amazing! Thank you so much for doing this!

cookiengineer 4y ago

This has such a huge potential to slay the dragon. Kudos!

pfix 4y ago

I don't get what this is. Is this a postgres fork? An extension? The documentation says it's Version 2 but the docs are rather lacking. Having something providing an "Oracle API" on Postgres would be awesome but not sure if this works like that?

paulryanrogers 4y ago
> IvorySQL has imported and enhanced the Orafce extension to add support for numerous Oracle compatibility features including built-in PACKAGES, data types, and conversion functions Sounds and looks like a fork to me. EnterpriseDB used to offer some Oracle compatibility built on Pg, as a fork IIRC. Don't see it on their site any more though. EDIT: Much thanks to replies with links to EDB.
- asah 4y ago
  EDB PostgreSQL is still very much alive and Oracle compatibility is a big success among enterprises that have chosen to migrate and need to smooth the process.
- sbuttgereit 4y ago
  That was the whole hook for EnterpriseDB. They still sell the product: https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-enterprise https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-enterprise The difference here is that the EnterpriseDB product is not open source.
  - chasil 4y ago
    IBM Db/2 also bought it, and uses it to implement SQL/PSM. https://www.enterprisedb.com/resources/ibmr-puts-oracle-sword-enterprisedb https://www.enterprisedb.com/resources/ibmr-puts-oracle-swor...
- skissane 4y ago
  Does it need to be a fork, as opposed to just an extension? I understand why upstream Postgres might not want to put Oracle compatibility in the core, since it would be adding a lot of crud which only a minority of people would benefit from. However, making sure the Postgres core has the extension points necessary to support extensions providing compatibility with Oracle (or DB2, MSSQL, MySQL, etc), is something they might be more willing to entertain.
  - chasil 4y ago
    The postgres 15 manual has a chapter on Oracle compatibility. I don't know where to find it on their website, but the docs RPM that they provide bundles the PDF.
    - skissane 4y ago
      You are probably thinking of ECPG's "Oracle compatibility mode", which makes it behave more like Oracle Pro*C - https://www.postgresql.org/docs/15/ecpg-oracle-compat.html https://www.postgresql.org/docs/15/ecpg-oracle-compat.html However, few people actually use Pro*C nowadays. I spent almost 10 years working for Oracle, and I never once came across anybody using it. I think almost all use of it is in legacy applications which date back to the 1980s, first half of the 1990s at the latest. Obviously still enough use for Oracle to keep on supporting it, even with some occasional minor enhancements, but rather fringe all the same. I don't think many people use ECPG either. I'm sure some people must, but I myself have never seen it. Probably most use is in porting existing applications from Oracle Pro*C, or its equivalents such as Informix E/SQL. Actually, it is interesting to observe that the section on ECPG's Informix compatibility mode is a lot longer than the Oracle equivalent. I don't know if that's because less compatibility is required (maybe Pro*C is closer to ECPG already), or if that's because Informix compatibility has received more investment.
      - thorin 4y ago
        I've used pro* C for a couple of things (in banking and utilties, 1990s) where people wanted interactive batch functionality for something more complex than you'd generally put in a shell script. I think most of the pro* C usage came from pre Oracle 7 when PL/SQL didn't exist.
- tamasnet 4y ago
  Their Oracle compatibility is still a thing, at least commercially: https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-postgres-advanced-server https://www.enterprisedb.com/products/edb-postgres-advanced-...
- znpy 4y ago
  That sounds like the description of a distribution of postgresql to me. Think of a gnu/linux distro, that gives you some pre-packaged software built with an intended goal (more or less general) and according to a certain set of opinions.
- rst 4y ago
  Also, their docs leave me wondering about the level of Oracle compatibility they're claiming. Their page on the subject, https://www.ivorysql.org/docs/compatibillity_features/hierarchical/ https://www.ivorysql.org/docs/compatibillity_features/hierar... , lists a bunch of immediate sore points -- date types and functions, the CONNECT BY query syntax, etc. But there are other things Oracle supports that are not listed, and still potentially serious stumbling blocks -- "fast" (incremental) automatic refresh of materialized views, IGNORE NULLS in window functions, and so forth. Oddly, I'd take their compatibility claims more seriously if they were more clearly up-front about the limits.
  - knutwannheden 4y ago
    Am I one of the only developers who actually likes the CONNECT BY queries? Often I think they are a very succinct alternative to recursive CTEs.
  - chasil 4y ago
    I'll just fire this up, create some external tables, and use the v7 join syntax to write out my data with utl_file.
Alupis 4y ago
Can someone elaborate on what specifically something like this would be used for? I would imagine if you're going through the pain of migrating off Oracle, picking something like IvorySQL is just a half-measure. Why not just make the switch to PostgreSQL (or other) and be done with worrying about compatibility? How long will this project last, and how great will the compatibility actually be - is it a drop-in replacement? Most folks use ORM's these days too - making switching databases simple (although not always trivial). So why does this need to exist?
- kijin 4y ago
  Full migration can take months if not years. Meanwhile, a drop-in replacement will allow you to stop paying Oracle immediately. I wouldn't be too optimistic about ORM usage in the kinds of organizations that chose Oracle in the first place.
- Schnitz 4y ago
  Oracle is expensive. Salesforce has been developing something similar internally for years to replace Oracle.
  - jamesfinlayson 4y ago
    So did Amazon/AWS I think.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  If you're using an ORM then you're by default using the database fairly generically. I'd ask why you are paying for any commercial DB in that case. Organizations who committed to and paid for Oracle are probably using a lot of the features that are unique to Oracle. Or they have a lot of legacy that is. If IvorySQL can take all their custom plsql packages and ETL batch jobs and run them without changes that's a big win. It's not clear to me that it really can do that, though.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    > It's not clear to me that it really can do that, though. It would seem exceedingly foolhardy to put all your eggs into, what is essentially a compatibility shim layer/plugin, that may or may not actually be compatible with Oracle or all of Oracle. The company behind it also is an unknown (to me at least) - HiGo[1]. So, IvorySQL is FOSS and free (as in beer) - but what happens if some feature doesn't actually work like advertised? Or something isn't implemented yet? Now you're paying HiGo for support instead of Oracle - although I'd trust Oracle's product a lot more personally. > I'd ask why you are paying for any commercial DB in that case. People pay for commercial DB's for a lot of reasons - including having someone to call at 3am when things go bad. Look at how prevalent SQL Server is - most of the deployments I've seen are because the company simply decided they will use SQL Server for everything (ie, not a technical reason). [1] https://www.highgo.ca/ https://www.highgo.ca/

vladsanchez 4y ago

It will be a success when it fully supports, Object Types, Packages, Autonomous transactions, PL/SQL, and BULK Collect Operations among other features.

fredsmith219 4y ago
That was my question. Is it compatible with PL/SQL? And how is the performance?
- cafard 4y ago
  Somebody makes a Postgres variant that supports not only PL/SQL, but supplies a number of the standard DBMS_xyz packages. EnterpriseDB?
  - martintietz 4y ago
    Yes, EDB's Advanced Server provides that: https://get.enterprisedb.com/docs/Database_Compatibility_for_Oracle_Developers_Built-in_Package_Guide_v11.pdf https://get.enterprisedb.com/docs/Database_Compatibility_for... (pp. 30 ff.).
forinti 4y ago
Oracle Apex will have to be considered too. It's undeniably a good platform for developing applications and firms get hooked on it.

rnd0 4y ago

Wiped out by Oracle's legal team (patents, whatever) in 4...3...2...

u320 4y ago
They haven't hit EnterpriseDB who have been doing the same thing, except not open source, since forever.
- hans_castorp 4y ago
  To my knowledge IBM's DB2 too has an "Oracle compatibility" switch that makes it also support PL/SQL.
  - martintietz 4y ago
    Exactly. db2set DB2_COMPATIBILITY_VECTOR=ORA gives you Oracle compatibility. You can even get MySQL compatibility and I have actually used that once in the past.
chasil 4y ago
Were they going to wipe out the SQL/PSM standard that has been approved by ISO? "SQL/PSM is derived, seemingly directly, from Oracle's PL/SQL. Oracle developed PL/SQL and released it in 1991, basing the language on the US Department of Defense's Ada programming language." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL/PSM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL/PSM They can always wipe out the Ada programming language while they're at it.
s3000 4y ago
How can Oracle do it when they couldn't do it for the Java API?
- zaphirplane 4y ago
  As a fact, There are 2 ways to “win” a legal Fight, one is to get the desired judgment the other is to make fighting the case prohibitively expensive for the other party

userbinator 4y ago

Great choice of name and logo.

nnurmanov 4y ago

Here is another approach from AWS https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/goodbye-microsoft-sql-server-hello-babelfish/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/goodbye-microsoft-sql-serve...

okaram 4y ago
But that one is for MS SQL Server, not Oracle
- chasil 4y ago
  It's postgres, but implementing TDS. It is important to understand that the networking is not the server. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabular_Data_Stream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabular_Data_Stream I use freetds in many places. https://www.freetds.org/ https://www.freetds.org/ I don't think that the programming language inside Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server, known as Transact-SQL, has been implemented in postgres, but I could be wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transact-SQL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transact-SQL Microsoft does not implement SQL/PSM in SQL Server. They need to do so. Immediately.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I don't think that the programming language inside Sybase/Microsoft SQL Server, known as Transact-SQL, has been implemented in postgres You are wrong; from the Babelfish page: “With Babelfish, Aurora PostgreSQL now understands T-SQL, Microsoft SQL Server's proprietary SQL dialect, and supports the same communications protocol, so your apps that were originally written for SQL Server can now work with Aurora with fewer code changes.”

gavinray 4y ago

Wasn't this also possible open-source from AWS's "Babelfish" plugin?

supportlocal4h 4y ago

I want compatability in a whole different direction. Let's get really crazy and rip the db out from under vendor solutions. Let their app with its compiled in Oracle driver communicate with a Pg server. We'll completely void any support contract we have, but at least we'll be Oracle free! Can you imagine just swapping in Postgres under a Peoplesoft deployment? As long as you don't make me actually attempt it, it makes me chuckle.

kiratp 4y ago
The software license will still stop you from doing that. No business that would need Oracle will run Oracle software knowingly violating the license.
- koolba 4y ago
  It’s also likely in violation of arcane copyright law. The oracle wire protocol includes a handshake procedure that sends a poem in one of the initial messages. It’s untested legal theory whether copying that poem in a new work (e.g. a new driver or compatability layer) would violate Oracle’s copyright on the poem. https://dacut.blogspot.com/2008/03/oracle-poetry.html https://dacut.blogspot.com/2008/03/oracle-poetry.html
  - quonn 4y ago
    Very interesting. But I think there are pretty clear rules that permit compatible implementation of wire protocols.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    Actually I’m pretty sure a lawsuit with Nintendo’s game boy drm (where you needed to have the logo in memory to boot) went to court and it was ruled that if working with the system required copying the copyrighted text then it’s fair use (US, long time ago and in a different but similar concept)
  - easton 4y ago
    Weird, Apple does a similar thing with macOS startup on Intel (and more recently, Rosetta on Linux). If the magic haiku isn’t given the OS won’t start. http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/docs/20120105_202426_apple_sealing.pdf http://www.rcfp.org/sites/default/files/docs/20120105_202426... is when Apple tried to get the haiku protected as a trade secret Bonus fun fact: Once the “don’t steal Mac OS” kext is loaded, a longer poem is loaded into memory (at least, it was around Tiger): Your karma check for today: There once was was a user that whined his existing OS was so blind, he’d do better to pirate an OS that ran great but found his hardware declined. Please don’t steal Mac OS! Really, that’s way uncool. (C) Apple Computer, Inc. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-warns-off-os-pirates-with-a-poem/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-warns-off-os-pirates-wit...)

unixhero 4y ago

So will this support materialized views? That's a very nice Oracle SQL feature

Justsignedup 4y ago
Postgres has it https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/rules-materializedviews.html https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/rules-materializedvi...
- ako 4y ago
  Not as nice as oracle, oracle provides auto refreshed materialized views that will be updated with every commit.
  - kabes 4y ago
    https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pg_ivm-10-released-2443/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pg_ivm-10-released-244...
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Isn't that better accomplished as an ordinary view + an index (arguably, an "auto-refreshed materialized" store is an index)? AIUI, Postgres supports indexes on arbitrary expressions.
  - deleted 4y ago
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Justsignedup 4y ago

So correct me if I am mis-understanding... it has to be in oracle or pg compatibility mode, so effectively its just an oracle api replacement, but should more or less behave like oracle so the only primary benefit is you stop paying oracle because you just want to leave oracle? It doesn't exactly let you move away from oracle APIs though. It is a big win financially. So good on them, I hope it gets all the traction!

up2isomorphism 4y ago

What’s the point of doing some just for the sake of destroying other people’s business?

nielsole 4y ago
Did not find any obvious references as to who is backing this project, but it seems to be a Chinese software consultancy. https://www.highgo.ca/ https://www.highgo.ca/ > What’s the point of doing some just for the sake of destroying other people’s business? Apart from any potential ideological reasons related to open source, they are likely planning to support their own business by providing a compelling product.
forinti 4y ago
Oracle requires a lot of maintenance and is terribly buggy. And the documentation is not always complete. Postgresql, on the other hand, is dead simple to manage. It's my dream to move all my Oracle databases to Postgresql.

mdaniel 4y ago

I presume this still requires the postgres drivers to connect but then just accepts Oracle syntax once connected? That seems like a very specialized replacement case -- where I guess the app has a lot of complex reporting logic or a monster amount of stored procs that can't be changed, but the consuming app(s) can change drivers and exception handling for the PG ones