Sybase, a major database development company of United States, launched a new version of its popular Sybase database, named Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) Express Edition for Linux which is free open-source. Sybase is providing a free license for ASE Express Edition for Linux but is not releasing the source code of the database. This particular version of Sybase will work on a single-processor machine with five GB of data storage and using a maximum of two GB of RAM.

Open-source database MySQL is available under the GPL (General Public License). But another open-source database, PostgreSQL, is released under the BSD license, meaning that companies do not need to pay a fee as long as they insert a copyright notice.

"Others [IBM and CA] are open sourcing their databases and those are databases that they''ve acquired over the years that have not been met with the same level of endorsement that their other products are; this is our flagship product, it represents the latest technology, the latest investments," said David Jacobsen, Sybase senior director of database and tools marketing.

Jacobsen said that while an open source version of ASE under the GPL or another type of open source license would be a popular move among Linux developers, the fact is that many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB) just want a working database to plug into the network without an inordinate amount of tweaking required.

Sybase is not the first company to give a open-source database, CA (Computer Associates) has launched Ingres r3 in August and Microsoft is coming up with a version of its popular SQL Server, named SQL Server Express Edition which is due out in next year.