InfiniSQL • Hacker News Board

Re: InfiniSQL

#41

Post by DannyBee » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 7:34 AM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #40

DannyBee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"massive commercial pressure against continuing to use anything GPL-licensed" I actually generally see just the opposite - even automakers, who are traditionally stalwarts about anything, are now starting to use GPL software in cars. "which is why there is so much work being invested into LLVM/Clang" This is a weird opinion, that i've seen a few times. This is not why LLVM was/is chosen, AFAIK. LLVM was/is chosen for…

Considering the adoption of llvm and clang came with a freezing of the version of gcc used/distributed by Apple to a version before a particularly notable GPL version (among other GNU projects being similarly frozen, like bash) was applied to it, it would take a hell of an alternate explanation to dislodge the notion that Apple's endorsement of the project wasn't significantly related to licensing.

This is an interesting rewrite of history. Chris gave a presentation at Apple and told them he could make a better compiler[1], and they hired him to work on LLVM (plus started to grow his team) well before they decided to stop contributing to GCC. There used to be parallel teams, each with about the same number of people. Hell, for a while, the LLVM team had less.

Apple was frustrated they couldn't get what they wanted out of GCC, and were getting patches and designs constantly rejected. This, combined with getting control over their destiny, and having serious needs for a modular compiler frontend for XCode (and their design for a compiler server/etc for GCC got shot down), plus Chris demonstrating good performance results + trajectory, led to them choosing LLVM.

But what do I know - I was there, in both communities, talking to the people who were involved in these decisions.

Realistically, if the SVP/VP in charge of Apple's developer tools had decided GCC was still the way to go, they would be working on GCC, GPLv3 policy or not.

Policies are not an end unto themselves.

All of this is completely orthogonal to the freezing of the GCC version. They could get what they wanted out of it in the pre-GPLv3 versions, given their future plans were LLVM based anyway, so they didn't make an exception for GCC when they banned GPLv3.

Of course, I'm not going to claim that apple didn't do other things more for licensing reasons, which a lot of can be explained by the desire to be able to share code between OS X and IOS in some places (and eventually, in a lot of places), and GPLv3 would have disastrous effects if they messed up. They calculated the eng cost, came up with "we have good alternatives, and can rewrite the rest", and did that, and banned GPLv3. However, they were making exceptions for years for certain pieces of software already. So if you had chosen any other example than LLVM, i'd probably agree with you. LLVM is just not a great example of "commercial pushback against GPL".

Apple's dropping of Samba would be a good example, since that is directly the reason they dropped Samba.

[1] One of my GCC friends walked out of this presentation complaining that he was selling them a bill of goods. Of course, he turned out to be wrong, but ...

Re: InfiniSQL

#42

Post by mtravis » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 7:48 AM UTC

coolsunglasses wrote: post #31

mtravis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On backlog to fix. But InfiniSQL is for hackers and early adopters at this stage. The SQL support is documented ( http://www.infinisql.org/docs/index/ )

Hackers and early adopters are using Perl in 2013? Sure you aren't off by 12-15 years?

This you? http://favstar.fm/users/hipsterhacker

Also, the main application is in C++. A python script launches the C++ daemons. Perl scripts are quick and dirty tests and deployment scripts. The main hacking I'm looking for is with C++, and I don't care so much if the other stuff gets re-implemented in some other language.

Re: InfiniSQL

#43

Post by stormbrew » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 7:53 AM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #41

stormbrew wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the adoption of llvm and clang came with a freezing of the version of gcc used/distributed by Apple to a version before a particularly notable GPL version (among other GNU projects being similarly frozen, like bash) was applied to it, it would take a hell of an alternate explanation to dislodge the notion that Apple's endorsement of the project wasn't significantly related to licensing.

This is an interesting rewrite of history. Chris gave a presentation at Apple and told them he could make a better compiler[1], and they hired him to work on LLVM (plus started to grow his team) well before they decided to stop contributing to GCC. There used to be parallel teams, each with about the same number of people. Hell, for a while, the LLVM team had less. Apple was frustrated they couldn't get what they wan…

I don't really think I've rewritten anything. Is anything factually wrong with my post? GCC's version in OSX' dev tools, along with bash and afaik all gnu binaries, was frozen at the last version available with gpl v2. This is plain fact.

The conclusion I've drawn from it is that GPLv3 was a significant driver in the decision to seek out and drive forward a non-GPL compiler project. I didn't say it was the only factor, but I stand by my conclusion that it must have been a significant one.

Re: InfiniSQL

#44

Post by DannyBee » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 7:57 AM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #43

DannyBee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting rewrite of history. Chris gave a presentation at Apple and told them he could make a better compiler[1], and they hired him to work on LLVM (plus started to grow his team) well before they decided to stop contributing to GCC. There used to be parallel teams, each with about the same number of people. Hell, for a while, the LLVM team had less. Apple was frustrated they couldn't get what they wan…

I don't really think I've rewritten anything. Is anything factually wrong with my post? GCC's version in OSX' dev tools, along with bash and afaik all gnu binaries, was frozen at the last version available with gpl v2. This is plain fact. The conclusion I've drawn from it is that GPLv3 was a significant driver in the decision to seek out and drive forward a non-GPL compiler project. I didn't say it was the only facto…

The rewrite is the part where you continue to claim it was driven at all by licensing

"The conclusion I've drawn from it is that GPLv3 was a significant driver in the decision to seek out and drive forward a non-GPL compiler project. I didn't say it was the only factor, but I stand by my conclusion that it must have been a significant one."

I believe i've completely rebutted this statement with my response. I believe I accurately explained exactly what went into the decision to fund and use LLVM, and "seeking out and driving a non-GPL compiler project" was literally not on the list of things the decision makers (Ted, in this case) cared about.[1] If you have actual historical evidence to the contrary, that contradicts my explanation of what drove the decision to use LLVM, i'd love to hear it. So far what you've put forth is a single data point which I already explained, was, AFAIK, completely unrelated to the decision to use LLVM.

Also, Apple/Chris first suggested merging LLVM and GCC (http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2005-11/msg00888.html), which would seem an odd strategy if licensing was the huge driver you claim it was.

Historically, the timeline isn't even close to right for your conclusion to be correct. Apple started seriously investing in LLVM in 2005, and the GCC GPLv3 switch didn't happen until 2009.

So, basically, you are welcome to stand by your conclusion, but it's, well, wrong :)

[1] In fact, Ted literally did not care about the licensing at all. They were considering using ICC as well, but this mostly got dropped after the switch to x86.

Re: InfiniSQL

#45

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 7:58 AM UTC

mtravis wrote: post #39

philwelch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, Linux and the GNU toolchain are carefully managed exceptions and there is massive commercial pressure against continuing to use anything GPL-licensed. Linux itself is strong enough to hold out against this pressure, but other things like GCC are not, which is why there is so much work being invested into LLVM/Clang.

Thank you, Phil. I'm conflicted about this--I was convinced recently to move away from AGPL having to do with what I was previously unaware of as seemingly legitimate acceptance issues. I feel good about using GPL instead of AGPL. But I'm conflicted about GPL vs Apache (or BSDish) in the sense that I'm getting the message that I have to bend over backwards just a little bit further before somebody, somewhere might be…

I say keep it GPL.. AGPL may be too far for many companies.. but GPL should be fine for the core product. As long as any protocols are well document, and client libraries are under more permissive licenses, I don't see an issue with it.

Re: InfiniSQL

#46

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 8:07 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #4

camus2 wrote: post #2

I believe the original subtitle is "Extreme Scale Transaction Processing" . "The NoSQL killer" is kind of childish, nothing is going to kill anything.

Same thought and it being at an early stage, ugh. And there goes at least a dozen of competitors out there trying to be different than MongoDB. I am just sort of happy that in the SQL world we usually either look at MySQL or PostgreSQL (well, Oracle and SQL servers are probably more relevant to corporate web service)... but I think people are trying to migrate too.

I think that even in a NoSQL driven domain, that a classic SQL based RDBMS has a place. It's that certain types of load have acceptable levels of relaxed constraints.. that can increase when your data is searched/read over 1000 times for every write. That joins are expensive and even mirroring data to a nosql store has benefits over purely rdbms.

I like document stores like MongoDB and RethinkDB and feel they are a great fit for most scenarios. I also feel that caching layers with Redis or Memcached can help...

Cassandra is interesting in the primary storage space as well, and imho has resolved a lot of issues, while others remain. I'm interested to see if this database can get there faster than Cassandra/CQL can get to more parity with traditional SQL systems.

While I appreciate the options, there is no one solution for everything... If you never break 100 simultaneous users, memory-mapped flat files and map/reduce could be sufficient.

Re: InfiniSQL

#47

Post by mtravis » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 8:12 AM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #45

mtravis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, Phil. I'm conflicted about this--I was convinced recently to move away from AGPL having to do with what I was previously unaware of as seemingly legitimate acceptance issues. I feel good about using GPL instead of AGPL. But I'm conflicted about GPL vs Apache (or BSDish) in the sense that I'm getting the message that I have to bend over backwards just a little bit further before somebody, somewhere might be…

I say keep it GPL.. AGPL may be too far for many companies.. but GPL should be fine for the core product. As long as any protocols are well document, and client libraries are under more permissive licenses, I don't see an issue with it.

Cool. The wire protocol is PostgreSQL's, so they provide the clients (BSD).

Re: InfiniSQL

#48

Post by philwelch » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

mtravis wrote: post #39

philwelch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, Linux and the GNU toolchain are carefully managed exceptions and there is massive commercial pressure against continuing to use anything GPL-licensed. Linux itself is strong enough to hold out against this pressure, but other things like GCC are not, which is why there is so much work being invested into LLVM/Clang.

Thank you, Phil. I'm conflicted about this--I was convinced recently to move away from AGPL having to do with what I was previously unaware of as seemingly legitimate acceptance issues. I feel good about using GPL instead of AGPL. But I'm conflicted about GPL vs Apache (or BSDish) in the sense that I'm getting the message that I have to bend over backwards just a little bit further before somebody, somewhere might be…

You can do what you want because it's your software. But from the open source policies I've seen companies use, there are generally three lists of licenses. The first list is "you can use any open source software that follows these licenses". BSD, MIT, Apache, etc. are on this list. The second list is "you have to get approval from Legal to use software with these licenses but we would generally prefer for you not to." GPLv2 is generally on this list. The third list is "don't even think about it", and GPLv3 and AGPL are on this list.

My impression is that the second list exists solely because there exists GPLv2 licensed software with no viable alternatives to it. Unfortunately, your project is not one of them. It's your project so you can do whatever you want, but GPL is an obstacle to adoption in industry.

Re: InfiniSQL

#49

Post by philwelch » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 2:28 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #38

philwelch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, Linux and the GNU toolchain are carefully managed exceptions and there is massive commercial pressure against continuing to use anything GPL-licensed. Linux itself is strong enough to hold out against this pressure, but other things like GCC are not, which is why there is so much work being invested into LLVM/Clang.

"massive commercial pressure against continuing to use anything GPL-licensed" I actually generally see just the opposite - even automakers, who are traditionally stalwarts about anything, are now starting to use GPL software in cars. "which is why there is so much work being invested into LLVM/Clang" This is a weird opinion, that i've seen a few times. This is not why LLVM was/is chosen, AFAIK. LLVM was/is chosen for…

LLVM may have been a poor example, but I'm not sure that justified downvoting my comment when there are, in fact, lots of companies with more restrictive policies against use of GPL software vs. other licenses. (Not even necessarily contribution, but even use). That GPL is allowed at all is a result of the fact that there are some essential GPL licensed projects with no good alternatives, like Linux. InfiniSQL is not one of them.

Re: InfiniSQL

#50

Post by philwelch » Fri, Dec 06, 2013, 2:43 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #37

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please consider the Apache License or some other license instead of the GPL. There are many organizations that cannot use any flavor of GPL, including LGPL, for legal reasons. You can debate the wisdom of that amongst yourselves, but alas, that's how it is in some places. (And I really want to try this...)

"There are many organizations that cannot use any flavor of GPL, including LGPL, for legal reasons" To be clear, there are no legal reasons I can think of that would ever prevent internal use of LGPL/GPL software. You mean these companies (Apple, for example) have policies. Policies like this often change because someone decides the cost vs risk tradeoff is worth it. Changing a license because of bad policies of cert…

I find that to be a strangely ideological response. Your prospective users' requirements are up to them to decide, not up to you. They're the ones who are going to decide whether or not to use your software.