Roger Howorth

People talk about databases like buyers have a choice. The reality is that each SQL database uses commands that are incompatible with its competitors. Consequently, you can't take an application designed to work with one SQL database and simply move it to another one.

All too often, firms buy an application, such as email or an accounts package, that is designed to work with a particular database. Companies can't simply port the app to another database, because the application vendor would not necessarily support the configuration.

For example, the virtual mail hosting system we recently installed in IT Week Labs is an open-source application based on Gentoo Linux. Like most applications, our virtual mail host is actually made up from many separate programs. For instance, it uses the Postfix mail transport agent and the Cyrus-SASL user authentication engine, which in turn uses a MySQL database to hold the mail system's user data, such as login names and passwords. As all the elements are open source, we don't need to pay any server or client licence fees.

We don't need to buy a commercial version of MySQL because we have not modified the MySQL software. We can therefore use the open-source Gnu Public Licence (GPL) version. Various elements of the system are "linked" during compilation, so, for example, Postfix needs to be compiled with optional support for MySQL enabled. This type of linking raises issues about intellectual property and the GPL. Programs that link to GPL software must themselves be issued under the GPL. However, this issue does not affect us, because we do not link any of our own software to the mail system.

However, we still needed tech-nical support for the system. We obtained this from a discussion forum at the Gentoo web site. Initially we had many problems that prevented the system from starting, but in every case bar one it turned out that the difficulty was caused by our failing to follow one or more steps from the installation guide. When we followed all the steps, the system worked correctly.

Over the first few months we visited the support forum a number of times to find help, but we always found other users had already discussed and solved whatever problems we ran into.

Now I'm not saying we couldn't improve our use of open-source software. For example, we have little information and no influence over the direction that will be taken by Postscript or even MySQL. If we decide our mail system is strategically important to our business, we could hire someone who works on the development of one of those packages. To me, this is the power-user version of the open-source model. Forget the campaigns about licence fees and so on because they are just a distraction. The real deal is to hire someone involved in the development of an open-source project that is key to your business. This will give you advanced knowledge of the technology, and influence over its direction.

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