In my company, I am a part of a team of 15 developers and we need to
work on a project to develop applications on Oracle 11i db.

Each one of us needs to host an instance of database on our PC/laptop.
Each developer also needs to connect database instance hosted on other
developers' laptop from time to time (that is, quite often).

I'd like to emphasize that we are *not* hosting an application (in other
words a production system) for our company's customers.

Up until now, life was simple, since we were using SQL Server 2005 and
each one of us had the Developer Edition of SQL Server 2005 which cost
less than $50.

Most of us have dual core laptops. Three chaps, however, have quad
processor boxes.

Is there free/cheap Oracle licensing scheme that we can take advantage
of? If not, would we be compliant if we bought 15 Named User Plus
licenses for Oracle Standard Edition (bearing in mind that Express and
StandardOne won't be acceptable to us).

Please can anyone help?

"Michelle Ryan" <michelle.ryan.2006 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Talk to your sales rep. That's the only way you'll get a valid answer.

--
Terry Dykstra

On Jan 22, 8:16*am, Michelle Ryan <michelle.ryan.2... (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
wrote:
1. google for Oracle XE. It's free, but certain limitations, I
haven't checked when it will be out for 11g. It's designed to be a
direct competitor for the free sql server thingee, whatever that is.
I take it that's what you mean by Express, why exactly is it not
acceptable to you?

2. Be sure you understand the oracle versioning. If you are talking
about the database, you mean 11g. If you are talking about Oracle
applications, that's another whole ball of worms and some cans of wax.

3. You can get real cheap basic support. Eventually you will want
real support, which should be based on your production needs. You
need support to get patches. You need patches to make production
quality databases.

4. Since I see SE1 isn't acceptable, you must understand which
options you need? Could you let us in on that?
http://www.oracle.com/database/product_editions.html

5. otn.oracle.com is where you get all this stuff besides patches.
Yes, you can download enterprise edition. Free registration required,
and worth every penny.

6. There is an oracle store online, but often you can do better with
a salesperson or a third party, depending on your requirements.

7. See the license when you download. An excerpt:

"We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license to use
the programs only for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping
and demonstrating your application, and not for any other purpose. If
you use the application you develop under this license for any
internal data processing or for any commercial or production purposes,
or you want to use the programs for any purpose other than as
permitted under this agreement, you must obtain a production release
version of the program by contacting us or an Oracle reseller to
obtain the appropriate license. You acknowledge that we may not
produce a production release version of the program and any
development efforts undertaken by you are at your own risk. We may
audit your use of the programs. Program documentation, if available,
may accessed online at http://otn.oracle.com/docs. "

There have been myths floating around about things this lets you trip
over, but basically, if you are just developing, download whatever you
want and develop!

8. Be sure to take backups, as in the technical (as opposed to legal)
sense, all those databases are production databases for your
developers.

9. There are Concept and basic backup manuals free online,
tahiti.oracle.com among others. Read them!

10. For the issues you will have to overcome to retrain your brains
from SS poison^H^H^H^H^H idiosyncracies, see books and online articles
by Tom Kyte.

11. Mini-FAQ about this groups relative cdos and some resources at
http://www.dbaoracle.net/readme-cdos.htm

Welcome to our universe!

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
Looks like you'll have lots of help:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori.../?zIndex=41155

Many thanks, Joel. My response is in-line below...

joel garry wrote:
Express Edition or XE won't be acceptable since we need to develop/test
on larger than 4 GB databases.


You are right. I should have said 11g



Is it possible to buy support (in order to get patches) even if we use a
free developer license (instead of a production release kind of full
cost license)?



Looking at the above link, my impression is that perhaps SE1 would be ok
for us. However, people around here seem to insist that we should
develop/test on Standard Edition since that is what our customers would
be using.



We've been told that a free developer license, that you get after free
registration and download, prohibits other developers (even if they are
in the same team and site) to connect to your database. I'd be
interested in your take on that.


Thanks for the support - I really appreciate it.

On Jan 22, 9:28*am, Michelle Ryan <michelle.ryan.2... (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
wrote:
Fair enough.

When you start actually doing stuff and have specific questions, be
sure and be real specific about which version you have, like
11.1.0.6.0


Terry Dykstra's answer applies here. I hesitate to say anything, as
things change with little warning, but I will say Oracle appears to be
tightening up on their monitoring of who has what and what they can
see to download. They do have a helpful patch update system where
your database converses with Oracle corp.

In some cases, salespeople will threaten you with an audit. But see
link below.


There's something to be said for making your systems as close as
possible to your customers, especially with newer versions that may
have obscure bugs.

I dunno, google around, but beware, like I said, there are myths
floating about. This one seems hinky to me, connectivity is the
foundation of Oracle. Read the licensing agreement that comes before
the download. Note that each download is a new agreement for the
computer being downloaded to. Note particularly that the conclusion
in the LewisC blog post that you need a license for dev is just plain
wrong:
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/oracle-g...-26422#2298391

That makes me feel good! :-)

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-020A.html

Michelle Ryan wrote:
Contact an Oracle sales rep - and bring your very best negotiator to the
table with you. The Oracle reps are some of the best negotiators in any
business. (a lot like used car salesmen ) and NEVER take their first
offer... especially if you are getting to the end of their quarter or
fiscal year.

Michelle Ryan wrote:
Download from http://otn.oracle.com and read the license carefully.

Of course, no freebies for your clients - they will have to pay
for an oracle license

--

Regards,
Frank van Bortel