OpenQM

The QM/OpenQM DBMS has generated a lot of buzz in the MV world as being the first commercially supported Free/Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) MV DBMS.

The open source is released under version 2 of the General Public Licence (GPL). It was released to allow software developers to contribute new ideas to the multivalue model by submitting changes that might be incorporated into the master source. In return, these developers would gain the contributions of other users.

The commercial QM and OpenQM have traditionally been referred to as the same product. However the commercial QM database is now increasingly branching away from the FLOSS OpenQM platform and Ladybridge software will probably not support/maintain the FOSS version in the future. The reasons for this are many but in short there were too few contributions to the FLOSS platform, too many requests from the freeware users, and too many disagreements about what contributions would actually make it into the commercial baseline package.

The commercial QM platform continues to sell and is actively maintained and enhanced by Ladybridge Systems (http://www.ladybridge.org).

Links:

• All software and docs available from links starting here: http://www.openqm.com
• Here's a wiki for the GPL offering : http://gpl.openqm.com/wiki/Main_Page (Many resources there)
• Here's the FLOSS project forum: http://groups.google.com/group/openqm-opensource
• The commercial product forum: http://groups.google.com/group/OpenQM