debian business wiki

[Alan DuBoff]

Jim Franklin wrote:

>   The question I would pose is what should be in a debian "business
> installation package" such as we have with "developer installation
> packages"(large and small) and the installation packages for web
> developers and so on.

As Clinton would say..."it all depends on how you define *business*". Everyone
has their own idea of what business is and/or what type of software they need
to run/operate theirs.

>   I would like to gear the question for the small to medium size
> business people, say for 1 -100 people, since larger companies and
> corporations can afford to put their own departments on the problem,
> whereas the small business owner is usually strapped for cash and
> manpower.

I would consider a company with 1 - 100 people (I assume this translates into
actual computers connected to the server) to be a fair size company. I
currently work at a company not too much larger than that number, and in that
type of environment I think you need to start thinking about servers, even for
workstations (offloads the workload).

>   My belief is that in the practical business world everything should
> revolve around choice of database (is this a practical assumption?).  

I'm not sure I would agree with this, but databases are certainly an important
part of a business environment.

> I myself would choose the postgresql database since it is a fully
> functional relational database that is already ported to debian
> GNU/linux.

Not a bad choice, but MySQL would certainly be a decent choice for a lot of
people as well. My experience is that MySQL is easier to build, configure, and
install than PostgreSQL. Databases are like religion, and many business will
choice a proprietary database solution like Oracle, Sybase, or Informix. For
non-proprietary solutions, PostgreSQL has rollbacks and MySQL or mSQL don't.

> ACEDB runs second because I don't believe it has matured
> enough yet.

I'm not sure how to compare ACEDB to a relational database, it's a completely
different beast. Surely, for the future an OODBMS offers more possibilities
than traditional relational solutions, but this again can get into a personal
opinion. Relational databases form the backbone of mosts businesses.

What you have to understand is that any business is going to be looking to
Linux for a server solution, it's not nearly as flexible for the average
business for a desktop solution. Don't read this wrong, I use it for a desktop
and it works wonderfully for me, but the average person is not capable of
maintaining a Linux desktop machine. Linux still needs a couple more years to
be a good desktop solution for the average user, IMO.

--

Alan DuBoff
Software Orchestration, Inc.