Re: Berkeley DB (was: Points of order on this WG)

On Jun 26, 2009, at 1:07 AM, Jonas Sicking wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:58 AM, Doug Schepers<schepers@w3.org>  
> wrote:
>> Hi, Maciej-
>>
>> Maciej Stachowiak wrote (on 6/26/09 1:49 AM):
>>>
>>> As a side note, it should be noted Berkeley DB itself could not be  
>>> used
>>> by WebKit or Gecko to implement the spec, because even though it  
>>> is open
>>> source, the license is not compatible with the LGPL. It seems  
>>> unlikely
>>> that non-open-source browser engines could use it either, unless  
>>> they
>>> are willing to pay Oracle for a commercial license. So it's very
>>> important for the spec to be clear and detailed, because everyone  
>>> will
>>> have to implement it from scratch.
>>
>> I wonder if Oracle would be willing to back the Berkeley DB option by
>> changing the license?
>
> I don't think we should tie a web API to a specific library. Just as I
> think specifying a SQL storage to exactly follow a given version of
> SQLite, I would think it's a bad idea to follow a given version of
> Berkeley DB.
>

I agree with the principle of not tying the API to a specific library.  
To the extent that this WG provides feedback, I would be inclined to  
keep the API independent of Berkeley DB. That said, there is inherent  
benefit to starting with an API which could be easily implemented and  
be mature enough from the beginning.

Therefore, my approach would be to use a subset of Berkeley DB's API  
that is justified based on the requirements considered appropriate by  
this WG.

> The idea isn't to use BDB specifically. The idea is to provide the
> type of data structures that SQL databases use to implement their
> tables.

You got it right.

>
> Berkeley DB used to be available as a backend to MySQL, so clearly it
> is possible to implement SQL on top of BDB. However it appears that
> MySQL no longer is able to run on top of BDB, so there is probably a
> reason for that too.

To be precise, MySQL has deprecated support for BDB as a storage  
engine starting with v5.1.12. Who know what will happen in the future  
though?

Nikunj
http://o-micron.blogspot.com

Received on Friday, 26 June 2009 18:04:52 UTC