[Tech] Rekall, RAD DBMS per Linux e Windows, ora e' GPL!

Finalmente una valida alternativa GPL (in ambiente Linux, Windows e in futuro anche Mac OS X) a Microsoft Access: Rekall, un RAD (Rapid Application Development) DBMS (Database Management System) prodotto da theKompany e giunto già alla release 2.1 viene ora distribuito sotto licenza GPL.



Questo significa che ora chiunque, come già succede ad esempio per GNU-Linux, può effettuare liberamente il download del prodotto e dei relativi sorgenti ed eventualmente apportarvi modifiche e ridistribuirlo - siamo ad anni luce, insomma, dalla logica "blindata" dei software proprietari come Microsoft Access.



Quello che finora mancava, in suite come StarOffice e OpenOffice, era proprio un DBMS (sotto licenza GPL) degno di questo nome: Rekall promette ora di colmare, finalmente, questa grave lacuna.



Rekall permette di costruire applicazioni database mediante form, reports, generatori di tabelle (il tutto molto in stile Access o Paradox, per intenderci) e può essere usato per sviluppare applicazioni "chiavi in mano" grazie al linguaggio di programmazione Python, integrato nel prodotto.

When we first developed Rekall we had a mind to GPL it and make it part of Koffice, but a variety of issues set us down a different track, however we’ve always looked for a way that made sense to open source Rekall so that it could be used in suites like OpenOffice and Koffice. We’ve now come to a point where we think we can GPL Rekall and make it work for everyone, and so starting today with the 2.2 beta code, Rekall is now dual licensed under the GPL, theKompany and the developers retain commercial rights to continue to use the code and provide for non-GPL versions to customers and companies that want it.



It is felt that this is the best way to grow the Rekall user base while at the same time adding new features and functionality to the codebase. Some of the options being currently under development or being considered include:



* The ability to store and work with formatted documents, such as from KOffice and OpenOffice, and in general any documents for which suitable plugins exist. It is conceivable to use the database wizard and database access engine from Rekall to create applications that will allow a spreadsheet to browse a database, or do mail merge in word processing documents for example.



* Improvement to enhance the development and maintenance of large database applications, including reusability and object oriented extensions.



* Alternative scripting languages, for instance Javascript (ECMAscript), to make scripting available to a wider audience.



* More database plug ins such as SQLite, CSQL, etc.



(...)



Rekall supports the following databases by default:



* xBase

* MySQL

* PostgreSQL



Commercial plug ins are:



* DB2

* ODBC (per l'accesso a un'ampia gamma di database, fra cui quelli in formato Access)

* Oracle (*****under development*****)



In addition, Rekall comes with a thorough demonstration database that illustrates the various features of the applications. This is build on top of xBase so the the user need not have an RDBMS server such as MySQL or PostgreSQL installed.

Rekall sarà supportato attraverso il portale della comunità, www.rekallrevealed.org.



Sia sul sito di theKompany che su Rekallrevealed sono disponibili numerose screenshot del prodotto, oltre ovviamente a ulteriori informazioni tecniche.



Fonte: theKompany - press release.