Meetings and Events

Open source databases depressingly mimic proprietary ones. They compete on "features". They don`t share code or ideas. They don;t formulate a standard a la the IETF and then strive for interoperability. And they are not working toward creating a true RDBMS.

RDMBSs are important and technically challenging. Its time to bring database management systems -- MySQL, Firebird, Postgres, Ingres, Rel, MonetDB, SQLite, sapdb, et al. -- into the Internet age. Lets use the tools that made the Internet possible to get out of the database doldrums.

Goals for free DMBSs:

• Community
• Standard wire protocol
• Standard API
• New query language
• Shared language parser and query optimization library
• Adopt lessons from Unix about namespaces and interfaces
• Be the thinking man`s choice

James K. Lowden works in quantitative research systems at AllianceBernstein. He began working with C, C++, and SQL around 1985, and NetBSD since 1.5. In his copious spare time he has for many years been the maintainer of the FreeTDS project (freetds.org).

• Event Audio (recorded and processed by Nikolai Fetissov)