Published at LXer:

Nowadays, the biggest traditional database companies are making free availability and open source development an increasingly significant part of their product lines. In the latest such move, this week IBM announced it would make its DB2 Express-C package available at no cost, though still under a proprietary license. [Ed: If this is a move toward FOSS licenses for proprietary database systems, great. For me, freeware is not so much a threat to free software as it simply steals the thunder. My real problem with freeware is that it creates confusion, as if there isn't enough of that already. Thus, a certain IT director I know, who doesn't understand the concepts behind libre software, would point to this as an example of "everything going proprietary". People miss the point that underpins the whole Free Software movement. - dcparris]

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