19 June 2016

I Be Moron

It's no secret that I've always found DB2 on LUW to be the best of the bunch. For at least a decade, IBM made available a free-as-in-beer version (DB2 Express-C, by name) of the database. For the first few years, this gratis version got the same minor releases/patches as the commercial versions. Then they stopped doing that, and merely provided a new download for minors that they felt like. There was never an update script or GUI, so one had to go through the uninstall/install process manually. Well, OK, it is gratis. And a great database.

Over all these years, near as I can recall, they offered up a minimally supported version of Express-C that could be used for commercial applications. Version 11 of DB2/LUW is recently out, so I checked on Express-C to see whether it had an 11 release. Yes, indeedee.

BUT

Without much notice, IBM has instituted a 600% increase in this supported version. At least, that's what one user has calculated. PostgreSQL gets better, MySQL gets Oracled, and the Suits in Armonk do this??? Not client friendly. Though, over the decades, IBM made bleeding clients into artform. Nothing much changes. Just ask Gordon.

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