X-no-Archive:yes
Or perhaps an immodest one. I understand that * no one has actually done *
what Date and Dodd proposed, at least according to some of what I read from
the slashdot links. Maybe there are good reasons why not, I don't know. But
if that is true and accurate, then there is still an opportunity for someone
to be the first to actually do it.

Imagine if HP did this. In fact, how about "Imagine" as a next generation
RDBMS on MPE. If HP wants to do this for HP-UX, Linux, even W2K, sure, why
not? If you're afraid of cheesing off MS, then leave it pure command line,
no GUI. And include appropriate XML support. Shoot, some of us might not
even complain about paying a reasonable price for it, at least not for
production.

Whoever does this is going to quickly hear either criticism from Oracle and
Co, or a chorus of me, toos. It would be provocative, that's for sure. As
for competition, everyone competes with everyone else, and also partners
with them. It's a new order, and we just live with the tensions.  Doesn't
Linux "compete" with HP-UX, which both compete with Windows? HP does show
some old-school entrenchment that seems to cow them from competing with
their partners. Then again, they can afford to take on Larry Boy; they're
bigger. And Bill can live with non-MS products, so long as everyone also
uses MS products with them. So make it pure CLI. SQL whallopers shouldn't
mind the command line, and even lots of typing.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com
Imagination is more important than knowledge - Einstein
Insanity isn't the liability it once was - me