IBM Joins Free-database Crowd

IBM has released a free version of its DB2 database, joining Microsoft and Oracle in offering free database software to developers. The goal of such products is to encourage software developers to use the products and write programs for them and to compete with the growing stable of open source databases, including the popular MySQL. According to research firm Evans Data, nearly three-quarters of software developers have worked with an open source database in the past year.

The free version of IBM’s database is functionally the same as the paid version, but it cannot run on all hardware. Systems that can run the new database must be limited to two processors or two dual-core chips, and there is a memory limit of 4 GB.

CNET, 30 January 2006