free development version of Progress anyone?

[jkrendal]

MS has a development DB, IBM with DB2 etc etc and now Sybase announces a free production version for Linux

http://news.com.com/Sybase+releases+free+database+for+Linux/2100-7344_3-5359441.html

So when the heck is Progress going to offer at least a development version of Progress for free. You know something with a 1 or 2 user limit that can be used for development? I mean really whats the deal with progress these days? Are they really that behind the times.

 

[joey.jeremiah]

progress tried the open-source route for a few years
with posse way before that

development, database, source files ofcourse etc.

progress still has a very low total cost of ownership
especially compared to the companies you mentioned

 

[Lee Curzon]

TCO may be low for a middle-sized company, but I suspect its pretty high for a single developer/ small company, particularly compared to free stuff. Does anyone here know what the rough cost is for a developer/small client version?

Of course, releasing a free mid-term evaluation version would interfere with the 'Progress Who?' strategy.

I personally agree Progress should flood the market with 2 license development versions, perhaps with limits on the number of tables/records - how could they possibly lose?

I seem to remember the Posse stuff was difficult to find, and unwieldy to implement.

 

[joey.jeremiah]

i'm still in university so i hope theres
someone more qualified then me making those decisions

if you're interested you can look into
the analyst papers @ psc

there are other options
e.g. negotiating a "percentage of application" license with psc


> I seem to remember the Posse stuff was difficult to find, and
> unwieldy to implement.

it was truly open source ( well, sort of )
a work in progress i.e. the development source

you had to compile everything, setup the environment etc.
i.e. there was no complete install.exe

and if you weren't using a stable source baseline
there were all sorts of bugs, heck it wasn't even beta

it took me some 2 very frustrating weeks to set it up
the first time, after that it wasn't that complicated

but on the upside you had a real chance to contribute
and access to the latest developments


lets see how their limited/restricted products
experience pan out ?

 

[jkrendal]

progress tried the open-source route for a few years
with posse way before that

development, database, source files ofcourse etc.

progress still has a very low total cost of ownership
especially compared to the companies you mentioned

The problem is your very rebutal. This is not meant as an attack, please dont misunderstand me. But everytime someone asks similiar questions in the Progress world, whether its providing a free limited license development version of progress, or a better cost structure to foster growth of Progress as a backend for B2B or B2C web applications your response is always presented.

Yes we know in ways Progress has a good TCO, but in some ways it does not. Take webspeed as an example or anyone trying to build a web based application on Progress. There are obvious cost restrictions or unclear methods to utilize other technologies such as JSP as an example. Plus the limited amount of non "knowledge base" only information. It would be nice to walk in a bookstore and see maybe at least two books on developing with Progress, or developing on webspeed etc. The hidden costs come in the limited amount of open resources for testing and development and a model that forces "instructional classes for a fee" to learn anything about specific Progress based applications. The TCO in ways is a slight front for all the other potential hidden costs.

I'm not trying to rant on Progress, its a great DB, but I just dont see how providing a freely available limited development version hurts TCO. Thats bunk. Instead, I feel its more due to a business model, that does not want to disseminate to much info (books etc) or free tools to expose its product, but instead, make good money on forcing the need for paid for training.

And in regards to Posse, that was a quite confused way to be open source. I dont think folks want something like Posse, they want things like a light limited dev version of Progress, better documented methods to utilize things like JSP or PHP with progress etc.

 

[bulklodd]

...better documented methods to utilize things like JSP or PHP with progress etc.

I can say I have no problem to utilize JSP, ASP and other stuff. All these methods is good documeted. Look at the chapter "OpenEdge Development" in the standard documentation and you'll find the answers on your questions.
But I agree with you the absence of development version is a lack, but I think situation is improving http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/15/HNprogresseclipse_1.html