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The Association for Computing Machinery's publication, ACM Queue, had Kirk McKusick of FreeBSD fame interview Margo Seltzer and Mike Olson about the development of Berkeley DB. The two, along with Keith Bostic, have been awarded the 2020 ACM Software System Award for the database. Berkeley DB is a dual-licensed (AGPL and proprietary), simple, efficient, transactional, nosql database and currently maintained by Oracle.
Kirk McKusick: Berkeley DB came out of the University of California at Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group's work to create a version of Unix unencumbered by AT&T's ownership rights to the original version of Unix. To do that, we needed a new kernel, written without using any of the AT&T code. We also needed all the applications and libraries that shipped with the operating system.
My colleague on the Berkeley BSD Project, Mike Karels, and I were in charge of getting a clean version of the kernel—that's another story! But Keith Bostic took on the task of getting all the apps and libraries done. He solicited volunteers for much of that work. I know he worked with you two on that. Why don't you start the story there?
Berkeley DB has been around since 1991 and can be found in many places, including inside OpenLDAP. In its 30 years, it has raised public awareness of non-relational databases. It is in general one of the more useful, reliable, and long-lived software projects around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @01:44AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @02:07AM (2 children)
I knew of this as a simple db library from BSD UNIX, but had no idea they added transaction and god knows what other fancy goodies.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday November 24 2021, @08:09AM (1 child)
It has provided transaction support for a long time. There are some old USENIX proceedings from 1999 on BerkeleyDB by Bostic, Olson, and Seltzer [usenix.org], back when it was still at Sleepycat. Section 3.10.4 addresses locking and transactions, and transactions are named in several other sections, but there are no sections which are just about them alone.
The dual licensing (AGPL/proprietary) means that the BSDs will have trouble with it, but the two good things that come out of that are that the code is available and it looks like Oracle has a way to make at least some money off of it. I'm not sure that offsets the harm that occurred by acquisition from Oracle though.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @08:18AM
This post of yours is quality.
Almost as good as aristachus' posts. ;)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @03:25AM (7 children)
Berkeley DB may be great but everyone should avoid anything maintained by Oracle.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by coolgopher on Wednesday November 24 2021, @03:41AM (6 children)
Care to elaborate on the reasons behind that advice?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @04:19AM
It is where good products go to die? All things SUN ...
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 24 2021, @05:37AM (4 children)
I will elaborate.
O.R.A.C.L.E.
L.A.R.R.Y. E.L.L.I.S.O.N.
Cacpiche?!
(Score: 5, Touché) by janrinok on Wednesday November 24 2021, @07:50AM (3 children)
No. Is it because his surname contains 7 letters? Is it because he has taken FOSS and included it into his own products without following the licence? Or is it simply because the multi-million dollar turnover company is owned by somebody you dislike means that nobody should use the software? You might be correct - but making the comments that you have does not help anyone understand your point of view. If you cannot support your argument with facts, or even your opinion, it might just be best to leave your views unstated. Your comment didn't 'elaborate' anything at all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Wednesday November 24 2021, @06:02PM (2 children)
How about that Oracle has a long, long history of using it's excessively large legal department as a bludgeon to extort cash from anyone and everyone it can based on even the most flimsy claim that someone might have gone a hair over some dim fuzzy line drawn in quicksand. They're the ones that have been dragging claims of copyright infringement of Java HEADERS through the courts (see this [wikipedia.org]). They're why the old MySQL had to be forked to MariaDB. They're a major contributor to the need to fork OpenOffice into LibreOffice (see this [wikipedia.org]).
In short, Larry has a nasty tendency to spend more money than God has committing legal violence on anyone and everyone who dares to think they can do anything without giving him a boatload of cash. Once he touches it, he thinks it's his personal property.
On a side note, apparently his neighbors aren't all that thrilled with him either. Everything from demanding that nobody's trees obstruct his view (even if the tree is older than he is), landing his noisy jet late at night in spite of curfews, and many other issues.
In short, he and the company he runs are toxic and to be avoided if at all possible. If you get anywhere near, sooner or later he'll be grabbing at your wallet.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday November 24 2021, @06:50PM (1 child)
Oh, I agree - it's a pity that the OP didn't say that then.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday November 24 2021, @07:14PM
He's not as bad as Bill Gates, but he is a nasty bit of work anyway. In his favor, he does tend to keep a lower profile. However, if you decide to look you can find plenty about both him and Oracle. Here's a quote about FOSS:
That's from 2010. Before that he bought InnoDB [sql-info.de], presumably because anti-trust enforcement disappeared with Little Bush.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.