This is a car donated to us, now on eBay. To think that the min. bid revenue would purchase only 1/4 of the MS-SQL 2005 server license that we need!
Addendum: for the first time ever, I’ve turned off comments on this because the posts concerning MS-sql are entirely predictable. Why pay $6000 for something you can get for free? Well, that would be stupid. But folks, it ain’t the same, and we can’t use a free sql on a site like this and expect the same performance (and if you knew how the site works, you would know that. Think about it: otherwise we would be talking about the biggest market failure in modern history). In any case, as a huge fan of open source but also someone who appreciates the brilliance of many of MS’s products, I’m exhausted from explaining this too many times. And as for now, we can’t afford MS-SQL so I guess it is a pointless debate.
Coda: ok ok after much protest, comments are on. But please please fellow open source fans (that goes for you firefoxgeek), no complaints about MS-SQL.
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There are good reasons to use MS-SQL (or Oracle, DB2, many more obscure), most obviously that your current code is written for one of these and it would be expensive to rewrite or you rely on third party software that itself requires MS-SQL. Another is simply that your developers simply prefer working with MS-SQL. I suspect one or more of these apply to mises.org.
However, the following reason does not wash:
Sites and appliations with far more load and complexity than mises.org have scaled with MySQL or Postgres, e.g., LiveJournal, Wikipedia, /...
Think about it: otherwise we would be talking about the biggest market failure in modern history
How is this a market failure?
Jeffrey, I understand your frustration with the open source advocates, even though I’m sympathetic to their arguments as well. Sometimes you just need the tools you need, gosh darn it. Have you tried approaching Microsoft about a charitable contribution? A donation of MS-SQL gets Mises.org the software it needs, and Microsoft could sure use some good publicity about now. Or is this a case of TANSTAAFdB?
Oh sure, yes, I’ve spent hours on the MS charitable sites, and hoped to get a discount. But as best I can tell, all that is available at a discount is the stuff that any site already has, or for which there really are open-source alternatives. In one case, I went from the beginning to the end of the application process only to find an automated message at the end that this software is not available through the discount program. certainly left that process unimpressed–and also confirming the doubts of others who said that this was a dead end. But of course you try anything.
hey wow, look at the bid price on the car now! And still 2 days left!
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