installation

product features

what is the relationship with other mv databases?

product licensing

how do release numbers work?

what is a dynamic file?

keyboard input problems

qmserver problems

the qmclient api

security issues

can i sell my own qm applications?

terminal support

what is the relationship with other mv databases?

qm is not universe, unidata, pick, reality, etc, etc, nor does it pretend to be a direct rival to these established products. there is, however, a close compatibility with other multivalue databases simply because they are derived from a common public domain model.

we listen to the wishes of our customers and are steadily adding new features. the fact that these may be similar to features of other multivalue products comes about because this is what our users have asked for, not through any desire to be a clone. qm remains positioned as a low end product and although it will happily support quite large user counts we have no plans to implement the advanced features of products such as ibm's universe. this is not our market. indeed, our view is that universe is the obvious growth path for users who outgrow qm and we would be pleased to quote to supply it.

the qm environment uses the same multivalue data model that underlies all mv databases. the qmbasic programming language is closely related to that of the mv products derived directly or indirectly from prime information such as universe, unidata, pi/open, etc. the command environment uses the same concepts as these products but includes many extensions and has some noticeable differences. the query processor also follows the general model of its counterparts in these products. several features of the pick style systems (pick, reality, etc) have been added in recent releases to provide closer compatibility for users familiar with this environment.

qm currently has no specific tools to aid inter-operability with other mv databases. there are no data interchange interfaces though it is not hard to implement mechanisms for simple data transfer. we are hoping to be able to offer some standard tools in this area soon. the data itself should be fully portable. it is also frequently possible to develop application software that will run on qm and on other mv databases. it has never been our intention that major applications would migrate to qm but it is useful to need just one set of skills to work with a variety of platforms.

qm started on windows. early versions even ran on ms-dos. one of our major design goals was to bring a very low cost variant of the mv data model to ibm compatible pc systems. with the advent of multi-tasking windows systems we removed support for the older versions of windows and dos so that we could take advantage of the 32-bit programming environment. as more advanced windows platforms appear, we are making use of improved interfaces and operating system features. the linux version of qm, released in 2002, opened a new marketplace for the product. continuing our aim of making qm available on low cost operating systems, a freebsd version was released on june 2004. there are currently no plans to migrate qm to unix though it will happen if there is sufficient user demand.

qm is not built using code taken from any other mv database products. at the time of launching the openqm gpl version of the product, the entire source code was proprietary, written by ladybridge systems. some of the new features added since then are based on code contributed by other developers.

of course, the biggest difference from most other mv databases is the price..........

[ ladybridge systems ltd acknowledges the copyright of product trade names referenced on this page and elsewhere. ]