From: stevedav@netcom.com (Steve Davidson)
Subject: Public domain DATABASE SYSTEM. (Responses)
Keywords: database public domain copyleft ingres requiem postgres exodus mbase 4BSD
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 03:34:04 GMT


This is a compilation of responses to my original post regarding 
free database systems.  I start with the original post and follow 
with a summary of the results.  The last part includes the 
responses verbatum.  

ORIGINAL POST:

Can anyone suggest a free, public domain, or copylefted
database system that meets the following requirements:

It is multi-user with record locking.
It must have fast indexing including a B-tree and a hash.
It needs to maintain a large and growing collection of data.
It should interface well with Unix utilities.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

I will re-post results if anyone shows interest.

Steve Davidson
steved@cfcl.com 

=================================================================
SUMMARY OF RESPONSES:

The responses included the following software:

4BSD O/S layers
Postgres 
Ingres
Mbase
Requiem
E/Exodus


My interpretation of the more-interesting points follows:

The 4BSD O/S provides O/S "primitives" in support of databases
such as low-level indexing schemes and structured files.  Read 
the email response on this one.

Postgres is my favorate in large part due to the current activities 
surrounding the project.  This has obvious benefits of support and 
improvement.  The Postgres project may be related to 4BSD.

I did not have to time to research Ingres, Mbase, Requiem or 
E/Exodus.

======================================================================
THE REPLIES:

From: seiferth@rufous.cs.unm.edu (Justin Seiferth)

Try mbase (comp.sources.unix Vol 28).  If you find something better,
please let me know.


======================================================================
From: Tero Laakkonen <laakkone@cc.helsinki.fi>

ingres? look in archie where you can get it.


======================================================================
From: Stefan Grefen <grefen@wilbur.zdv.uni-mainz.de>

Try Postgres from postgres.berkeley.edu.
There is a perl and tcl interface to postgres.
Hope this helps
 Stefan
-- 
Stefan Grefen   ---   Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz   ---    Germany
Email: grefen@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de



======================================================================
From: M{nnist| Tatu <tm@cs.tut.fi>

You should try postgres which is a next generation DBMS. It is about
200000 lines of C code and available free of charge by anon ftp from:
  postgres.berkeley.edu      (128.32.149.1)

It is still under development, has few bugs but anyway it is the best
I've seen for $0.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tatu Mannisto                                   Tampere Univ. of TeXnology
+358 31 185 414    home                           Internet: tm@cs.tut.fi
+358 31 162 951    work (HB230)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

======================================================================

From: mike acklin <EACKLIN@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Public domain DATABASE SYSTEM.
To: stevedav@netcom.com
Status: R

Hi
Try CBASE from Simtel20 archive. It'll need some tweaking, and I don't know
for sure about multiuser yet, but it's a pretty nice design if you're a
C-programmer...if not, it's a good place to become one....

Let me know what other responses you get, as I'm doing an evaluation similar
to yours. If I find others myself, I'll let you know.

Michael Acklin
Research Analyst
Office of Institutional Research
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
eacklin@uafsysb.uark.edu

======================================================================

From: <bostic@postgres.berkeley.edu>

First, so you can stop reading quickly, the system I'm going to
direct you to does NOT have record locking in the production
version.  Record locking has been done, but it's still a prototype.

That said:

The 4BSD system now has the underlying layers (C application layers)
of such a beast.  The upper layers will be added in the next year or
so, including full transaction support.  It's freely redistributable,
like all Berkeley software.

It has B+tree and extended linear hashing implementations, as well as
an interface to fixed and variable length records (the latter is
intended to permit use of UNIX files as databases).  The interface is
consistent across all access methods.  The hashing and B+tree
implementations are at least as fast as any others we have found.  The
hashing implementation has record locking completed, the B+tree has a
prototype.  The record interface has not had locking implemented,
although, since it's built on top of the B+tree code it wouldn't be
difficult to do.  There is an underlying shared memory buffer pool used
by all of the access methods.

If you want more information, let me know, or, you can get details on
the intended transaction support from the LIBTP paper in the Winter
1992 USENIX Proceedings.  Details of the hashing implementation are
in the Winter 1991 USENIX Proceedings.

        uunet!bostic
        bostic@okeeffe.berkeley.edu

        Keith Bostic                    +1-510-642-4948
        457 Evans Hall
        CSRG, CSD
        University of California
        Berkeley, CA  94720


======================================================================

From: afc@shibaya.lonestar.ORG (Augustine Cano)

Some months ago I looked into mbase (metal base 4) originally written for
the atari, but version 4 meets, if I remember correctly, all the requirements
above.  I is a relational database engine, no fancy user interface.  It is
shareware and can be found at the wuarchive ftp site.  I'd be interested in
whatever you can find out.
 
Thanks.
 
-- 
Augustine Cano          INTERNET: afc@shibaya.lonestar.org
                        UUCP:     ...!{ernest,egsner}!shibaya!afc

======================================================================

From: jfr@redbrick.com

Look at the following recent post on Requiem.  I have found it to
be very stable in previous releases (far more so than Metalbase
or other PD/ShWr products that are available).   Its only drawback
is that it uses Quel, not SQL (although I am trying to implement
a SQL front-end which I may distribute).  
 
Good luck.
 
Jon
 
>>From: robertp@carina.csis.dit.csiro.au (Robert Andrew Power)
>>Subject: Extensions to RDBMS REQUIEM
>>Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 23:51:25 GMT
 
REQUIEM (RElational Query and Update Interactive systEM) is an 
extensible, relational DBMS developed in C with a query language
based on the relational algebra called RQL (Relational Query 
Language).  Descriptions of REQUIEM can be found in :
 
        `An Extensible DBMS for Small-Medium Scale Systems',
         Papazoglou, M.P., IEEE Micro, April 1989.
 
        or the book :
 
         Relational Database Management - A Systems Programming 
         Approach, Papazoglou, M.P. and Valder, W.,
         Prentice Hall International, UK, 1989.
 
 
The original version has been extended in the following ways :
 
        - to make it a multi-user system and 
 
        - a preprocessor to allow embedded queries 
          in standard C programs.
 
These changes are as yet mutually exclusive.
 
The source code for these extensions have been made available by 
anonymous ftp to :
 
        dcssoft.anu.edu.au

The respective compressed and tar'ed files are 
 
        - REQUIEM.tar.Z (muli-user version)
 
        - Requiem.tar.Z (includes preprocessor)
 
 
Any queries with the embedded version of requiem can be directed   
to : 
 
robert.power@csis.dit.csiro.au
CSIRO Division of Information Technology
PO Box 664                                      tel: +61 6 275 0960
Canberra ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA.                    fax: +61 6 257 1052
 
The person who wrote the multi-user version is no longer at the ANU
and is in fact out of the country.  He will be starting a PhD at  
Queensland University of Technology in 93 (or so I'm told).  Any
queries regarding this version of Requiem will have to wait until
then.
 
Robert Power


======================================================================

>From maney Mon Oct  5 09:53:26 1992

Try E/Exodus at ftp.cs.wisc.edu.  Exodus is an industrial strength
storage manager.  E is persistant C++ based on gcc 2.2.2.  The
persistant C++ pardigm makes for rapid transaction processing system
development.  Exodus has state-of-the-art concurrecy, consistency
and recover featrues including automatic self repair.  Binaries
are posted for Suns.
 
-George

======================================================================

--
Alan S. H. Lam
Department of Information Engineering, CUHK, Hong Kong
E-mail: shlam@eng.ie.cuhk.hk 
Tel: (852) 609 7975 Fax: (852) 603 5032