I need a free/cheap database system

June 27, 2006 11:24 AM

I'm starting a commercial web site. I doubt it will make money for a long time, and maybe it won't make any at all, but I'd like to give it a try for the hell of it. It will be a rating site, similar to epinions and I want to store the info in a database; mysql wants $600 a year for licensing which is simply too much. Is there another suitable DBMS that would work with PHP or Perl? If there are no free database packages out there, how might I get around the need for one?
posted by zorro astor to computers & internet (8 comments total)

PostgreSQL.
posted by gus at 11:28 AM on June 27, 2006

Am I missing something? From the MySQL licensing FAQ:

As long as you never distribute the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not.

posted by subclub at 11:29 AM on June 27, 2006

I was reading here. Note the bit about websites.
posted by zorro astor at 11:31 AM on June 27, 2006

Yeah, they would like you to sign up for their "developer network" type service, but you don't have to. You'd basically be paying them $600/year for tech support. As long as you aren't doing anything crazy, you shouldn't need that.
posted by subclub at 11:34 AM on June 27, 2006

It's a lot of double-speak. You don't actually have to pay unless you release your software. The GPL says *nothing* about for-profit businesses, it only says stuff about releasing software as for-profit or not.

They just want you to think you have to pay. It's their profit model.
posted by SpecialK at 11:35 AM on June 27, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oh ok super. I was hoping someone would tell me something like that :-)
posted by zorro astor at 11:35 AM on June 27, 2006

MySQL's licenses are pretty specific. To *use* their database software, you need not pay.

If you were creating an application with a built-in database, and used MySQL, and distributed MySQL as part of your commercial application, they would want you to pay.
posted by jellicle at 12:26 PM on June 27, 2006

Using MySQL on the back-end of a website is free. Redistributing MySQL or its components is not necessarily.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:10 PM on June 27, 2006