[ZODB-Dev] FYI: Our plans for standby storage

[Paul Everitt]

Hello all.  I wanted to follow up to Sean's post on Thursday.  Sorry for 
the delay.  There's no good excuse, except it snowed and I played with 
my daughter. :^)

Sean gave a good list of the potential options for a highly-available 
storage.  One of the options listed was the standby storage that Jeremy 
and others have been working on.  Though I'm considering changing the 
name* to Replicated Storage (a fact that I haven't shared until now with 
Jeremy :^), I'll refer to it as standby storage for this note.

In a nutshell, we plan to charge for standby storage.  Other than the 
fee and limits on distribution, it will feel just like our existing 
license terms.  Namely, you'll get the source.

This is not a shift, at all, in ZC's position on open source.  I've 
always supported people making a buck atop Zope.  For this product in 
particular, we expect the product and the service that goes with it to 
provide a utility that people expect to pay for.  This is a piece that 
is completely optional, from a platform perspective.  We're aiming this 
initially as an option our consulting customers.

While it won't be cheap, it will still be a value for the audience that 
it's aimed at.  Which is why, as Sean mentioned, there will be other 
options that we hope will satisfy classes of use.

More details to follow.  In summary, I'm excited about standby storage 
and its target market.  At the same time, other options can cover other 
segments.

--Paul

* About the name, there's the potential for the Replicated Storage 
product family to, over time, exceed the scope of the current Standby 
Storage.  Also, Standby Storage invariably will be referred to as "SS", 
and that, my friends, would be a poor decision.