DB2 free -- as in beer (and Gematriculation)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we ask, "Can you say 'free' and 'IBM' in the same sentence?" Not to mention discovering how evil your website is, using Mr. Ivan Panin's "infallible" methods of Gematria...

Everything Blogwatchy is coming in 2s, it seems. Today it's DB2 -- but wait, there's more... it's free (but no steak knives). It was announced yesterday but if you were paying attention back on the 18th January Mark Whitehorn predicted this: "DB2 is the most respectable and most powerful database engine in the world ... IBM makes a claim (undisputed to my knowledge) that more structured data is stored in DB2 than in any other database engine ... Let’s face it, when most people argue about databases, it’s the same old Oracle vs. SQL Server fight, with maybe some Sybase and Informix thrown in. Who mentions DB2? Yet we should ... The problem is that IBM seems to have forgotten to tell anyone about it. Why? ... Did you know about DB2 Express Edition? It runs on Linux, UNIX or Windows ... It is easy to manage, mainly self-tuning, very, very cost effective and my guess is that it is about to get cheaper [Yep, 'free' is much 'cheaper'] ... My prediction for the very near future is that DB2 express edition will enter the realms of ultimate cost-effectiveness – or 'free' as we used to say."

» Tim Anderson: "IBM's offering is completely free, and you can register for free redistribution of DB2 Express-C with your application. It's available for Linux and Windows running on 32 or 64 bit hardware with up to 2CPUs and 4GB of memory.  Congratulations to fellow Register freelancer Mark Whitehorn for predicting this a short while ago. Now for the debate: what factors will guide our choice now? Or are we better off with the likes of Firebird or MySQL?" [That's enough mutual backscratching - Ed.]

» Philip Letts: "A move designed to win software developers over to its products ... The company places limits on what of hardware it can run on. IBM is following similar moves from Oracle and Microsoft recently, as well as the increasing shift toward open source software by the development community ... MySQL was by far the most popular among respondents ... The free software movement continues unabated amongst developers, tech start-ups and soon into the corporate and government universe." [If you say so]

» Sun blogger Ben Rockwood strikes a sour note: "DB2 is so sucky that they decided to buy Informix to make sure something even suckier is around to make DB2 look good. Its like high school, you look better when you surround yourself by ugly people ... But, not for everyone. Linux and Windows only. Bastards. Oh well. Check it out if you wish." [Sheesh, don't hold back, Ben -- say what you mean]

» Mike Hillyer: "It would be difficult to estimate the balance between appealing to developers and the influence of Open Source databases such as MySQL, but ... these free offerings are less an attempt to entice Open Source users away as to keep existing and new users from being enticed away to Open Source. Of course, when evaluating the free offerings, one must keep in mind the costs incurred when a system exceeds the built-in limitations. It is nice however to see that IBM is limiting the hardware only."

» On which Darin commented: "IBM's decision is solely to keep MS from undercutting DB2's price (a significant, but not sole, part of their TCO story). MS's decision is to entice developers who want to keep their own costs down - much the same reason as why MS used to practically give away their C compilers: to keep developers on Windows. Of course, once they had pretty much taken over the developer mindshare, their compiler prices went way up. So there must be pressure on MS due to the fact that database developers have a choice in the 'cheap to own' database space. So OSS has influenced MS's decision, but IBM was influenced pretty much solely by MS."

» And Giuseppe Maxia lamented: "It may be free, but try to get a download of a IBM product from outside the USA, and then you’ll see why most people prefer other companies. When you try to download you are asked to register. After answering countless questions, you are told :  'This product is subject to strict US export control laws ...'  I waited 20 days in November to get a SDK, while I got the corresponding software from Oracle in 10 minutes."

Buffer overflow:

• Richi Jennings: Fewer spammers forging the From header
• Eric Bangeman: Gartner: don't rush on 802.11n
• Matt Marshall: Google's one employee in Washington
• Brian Krebs: Be Careful With Winamp Links
• Groklaw: Google On
• Sean Kaye: GPL v3: Where Pragmatism Goes To Die
• Ed Foster: Starting a EULA Library
• E. Schwartz: Are high tech firms denying access to their customers?
• Techdirt: Unbreakable Software Broken By Helpful Security Researcher?
• Adam Fields: What’s the big fuss about IP addresses?
• Om Malik: Microsoft’s Cell Phone-y Plan
• Nicholas Carr: Open source's other advantage
• Vijay Tatkar: A changing business model for Sun Studio
• Chris Breisch: No Vista Beta 2
• Sarah Blow: 10 Really Good Reasons to Become a Female in IT!
• Frank Hayes: Why AT&T Missed the Next Big Thing
• Martin McKeay: Going to the RSA Conference
• Mitch Betts: The next frontier: Genetic privacy
• Mitch Betts: Software-as-a-service: Good but oversold
• Heidi Biggar: To de-dupe or not to de-dupe?
• Shark Tank: Not the Answer He Expected
• Martin MC Brown: Cracking is not funny

And finally...  How evil is your web site? Your humble blogwatcher checked richi.co.uk/blog -- 49% evil ... www.disney.com -- only 37%? Hmmm, just how infallible is this thing?

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.