A new reason has come up to be swearing at MySQL rather than swearing by MySQL.
The MySQL Performance Blog reports that MySQL Community Edition has not been upgraded since November 2007, whereas it previously received twice-a-year updates. This product is the free and open source version of MySQL (The M in LAMP) that was MySQL’s source of success.
What is bothersome is that the MySQL Community Server page lists version 6.0, however if you follow that link, you are directed back to the 5.0.x version and also directed to their per server/per year license, which has an enticing per server/per year license starting at $595 but quickly stepping up to $4999 per year.
I’ve had a few folks point out to me that this is a better price than Valentina, until they figure out that Valentina initial pricing is for two years of updates, not one, bringing the price down to about the same or below MySQL pricing. That is intentional.
Easy Report Generation from the Makers of Valentina Database
Valentina Reports for Cross Platform Applications
Paradigma Software Inc develops the ultra-fast, cross-platform database system Valentina. Valentina Reports is a new client technology that lets you play back rich, formatted reports in your application.
Features for Initial Release
- Layout Visually Rich Reports in Valentina Studio Pro Beta (free during beta period)
- Drag Query Objects into Layouts
- Organize your data into Groups
- Add layout elements such as labels, lines, vector shapes, pictures
- Pull and display pictures from databases
- HTML/Web Object pulls pages from databases or live from URL
- Support for all major development environments on Windows and Mac OS X (Linux coming)
- Exports PDF and bitmap graphics of reports
- Royalty free application deployment
Examples of supported environments include Runtime Revolution, Adobe Director, Apple xCode, .net and more. (more…)
After reading a great article in Practical Web Design on FaceBook integration, we set up both the Runtime Revolution Facebook Group and Valentina Facebook Group on…Facebook. Tom McGrath of Lazy River Software asked me earlier today why you’d want to spread yourself so thin across multiple venues. There are plenty of social implications - its extremely hard to keep up with all of these social networking venues. They all want to own our identity and content - and they all (the ones that will survive) offer integration APIs, videos, music and more to get you to participate.
But this really isn’t about the technology - its about the socializing and appropriate venue. It seems like that simple truth may be eluding many, who probably have already forgotten what drew them to pre-Web 2.0 venues that very much were about where you hung out. The more you can get your face out there in the right venue, the more likely you will meet others of that also like that venue.
Once again - Valentina is not only the fastest developer database but also the first-to-market to support the new, Universal Binary version of Adobe Director 11 - with Valentina for Director 3.5.2. Adobe Director 11 was recently announced at Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. You can’t buy Director 11 yet, but you can pre-order the upgrade.
For Mac OS X developers, Valentina for Director 3.5.2 offers both a Carbon and Universal Binary version, with the former - and the Windows version - supporting back to Director 8.
I sometimes get asked what the difference is between Adobe Director and Mirye Runtime Revolution. They are different in so many ways - except that they both offer cross-platform solutions for building rich media applications. Director does fall short, in that Revolution also supports Linux and Solaris. But Director has Shockwave on its side, for playback through the Shockwave browser plugin. Good thing that there is a Valentina solution for both platforms.
Paradigma Software and Mirye Software Publishing are celebrating 10 years of Valentina by giving away developer licenses to Valentina 2.5.8 ADK Standard Edition - between February 14 - February 18, 2008. It is our Valentine’s Day gift to cross-platform developers who need to deploy database applications on all three major operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
You can get your free license by visiting the registration gift site.
It wasn’t very long after Valentina 1.0 that I first met Ruslan Zasukhin, founder, co-investor and VP of Engineering at Paradigma Software. Valentina 1.0 was strictly a C++ development kit at the time. Proactive International approached Ruslan to create a version of Valentina for REAL Software’s REALbasic development environment. Valentina has progressed - with server versions - including Valentina Office Server and Valentina Embedded Server, and support for many more development systems and two web languages: PHP and Ruby/Ruby on Rails.
While I have to remain candid about forthcoming developments, there are new products on their way in 2008 that will enable developers greater freedom to interact with, organize and display their millions of records. Watch for it!
As lead investor and co-owner of Paradigma Software, the Sun Microsystems $1 billion acquisition of MySQL announced today was a big filler of my inbox - both from the conventional computer industry media and users of our Valentina Database System. That Oracle also acquired BEA Systems was barely covered but also of interest. I think the NetworkWorld quote gets to the heart of the why.
MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.
Sun has, over the course of the last five years, found itself the guest without a chair at the enterprise dinner table. Solaris OS was the operating system of choice when companies were building their first internet infrastructures, and Sun found new relevance with the Java - only for Java to find cold comfort on the desktop but a welcome home on the server. Open sourcing Java and now, the acquisition of MySQL strengthens the relationship it would like to groom with the now respected open source developer community; the relationship that Oracle’s support (or hijacking as Ive heard it referred to) of Red Hat Linux was supposed to accomplish.
This will matter little to developers who use ultra-fast Valentina database system or cross-platform development environments like Revolution. (more…)
Valentina technology release 3.5 is now available through Paradigma Software and Mirye Software Publishing. There is a lot to like in this release - it includes a lot of new example projects for .net (C# and VB.net), Adobe Director and Runtime Revolution, to help get started with stored procedures and triggers. But the most interesting item is user defined properties for server databases. This represents a new breakthrough in database development – while object-relational and true object-oriented databases have existed for years, treating the database itself as a programmatic object is new, especially when talking about a database server.
It is being reported that REALbasic 2007 R4 has dropped official support for MySQL and that the company is directing developers to utilize ODBC drivers to interact with MySQL. The GPL’d driver was turned over to a third party to continue support. It has also been reported that there were too many business issues with licensed connectivity between differing versions of MySQL. However, given the persistence of MySQL in closing deals they are interested in, it simply could be these issues were not surmountable given the level of interest of the parties. Like most companies of size, if the opportunity isn’t large or significant enough to their own business strategy, its easy enough just to point towards company policy and a take-it-or-leave-it position.
Anyway, REAL Software has been strongly promoting their own SQLite based database server and placed significant policy barriers in their forums against discussing competing products - including banning Paradigma staff members after staff members answered questions asked by REALbasic users about Valentina for REALbasic. What would MySQL think about such policies coming from a potential partner?
OSCON (O’Reilly Open Source Convention) and Ubuntu Live (the first convention devoted to the Ubuntu Linux based operating system) both take place this week - the week of July 23 - in Portland, Oregon. (more…)
