Database Systems and Open Sourcing - Research Paper Example

Why open-source software will not soon dominate the field of database management tools Open source software can be defined as software that are distributed along with their source code as well as rights to study and modify the source code in order to customize or improve the software. Open source software is usually free, however, some open source software are also available for a price. In the recent years, there have been a increasing trend of adopting open source software by companies around the world and several reasons have been mentioned in the literature for this (OSI Website, 2011).

For example, the increasing interest in open source software by both developers and end-users in recent years has resulted in the development of capabilities of these software which matches proprietary software to a significant extent. Another reason is, due to availability of source code, these software are not only widely documented but also the code of these software is reviewed by a large developer base resulting in greater optimization of their software. In addition, even the minutest of the bugs are noted and fixed much quicker than those available through proprietary means (Rothwell, 2008).

One of the great examples of open source software is the MySQL database. MySQL is one of the most widely used open source database software. Due to its cost (its free) and availability of its source code, MySQL has developed, over the years, into a comprehensive database management software that can be small and medium as well as large enterprise with considerable ease and fewer issues than some of the proprietary software than belong in the same category (MySQL Inc, 2011). On the other hand, two of the best examples of proprietary software are Oracle and SQL Server database management system which are leading database systems in the world.

With tremendous capabilities and wide range of supporting tools along with excellent support, both Oracle and SQL Server are capable of handling data and managing transaction that can occur in large or even very large enterprises. Some of the examples of organizations preferring to use open source software instead of proprietary software are Xceedium, Linkedin Website and Nomura Research Institute. Xceedium, is one of the leading entitlement management solution provider. It has preferred to use MySQL in its Xceedium Gatekeeper range of security products due to MySQL resilience as well as performance.

Linkedin is one of the most popular social network website for professionals. In 2008, it selected MySQL as its enterprise database solution and to support its rapid growth. The reason for this was acknowledged to be the scalability as well as the responsiveness of MySQL DBMS system. Nomura Research Institute (NRI) is one of the leading financial solution integrator in Japan. One of their major products, OpenStandia which automates fund management operations for asset management companies, uses MySQL as it backend database system (MySQL Inc, 2011).

All these examples provide considerable proof that MySQL, being open source software, is gradually becoming more popular and that the companies around the world have begun to realize that potential that comes from MySQL being open source software. While it might seem that open source software will quickly take over proprietary software, the case may not be true for some time. At the moment, while open source software offer benefits such as low or no price, access to source code, code review by a large number of developers as well as short bug fixes time, they do lack some of the more important things which come as an essential with commercial software.

These include the high quality of vendor services in deployment and support of proprietary software. Almost all of the proprietary software have automated updates which means that their users do not have to worry about applying bug fixes all by themselves. In addition to this, proprietary software are also much easier to adopt in an organization due to their feature richness and ease of use (Asay, 2007). Open Source software can be considered the future of software. However, at present, it does not seem that open source software would be able to completely overwhelm the proprietary software in the near future.

References Asay, M. (2007, October 2). Why choose proprietary software over open source? survey says!. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9789275-16.html MySQL Inc. (2011, May 5). Mysql customers. Retrieved from http://www.mysql.com/customers/ OSI Website . (2011, May 5). Open source initiative. Retrieved from http://www.opensource.org/ Rothwell, R. (2008, August 5). Creating wealth with free software. Retrieved from http://open-source.gbdirect.co.uk/migration/benefit.html