4 ms·

To my understanding, KDB+'s license explicitly forbids benchmarking: "1.3 Kdb+ On Demand Software Performance. End User shall not distribute or otherwise make

by mfreed 7y ago

To my understanding, KDB+'s license explicitly forbids benchmarking: "1.3 Kdb+ On Demand Software Performance. End User shall not distribute or otherwise make available to any third party any report regarding the performance of the Kdb+ On Demand Software, Kdb+ On Demand Software benchmarks or any information from such a report unless End User receives the express, prior written consent of Kx to disseminate such report or information."

srazzaque 7y ago
That's a shame. I'm not sure what the rationale is for such clauses - especially where performance of your tech is known to be pretty good (as is the case for KDB+). There's definitely a huge opportunity to displace KDB+ as the mainstay for timeseries in capital markets. It is a premium product, but it obviously comes with a cost - both for the product and its operators. Assuming all use cases can be catered for, if one needs an extra N machines if using TimescaleDB to cater for the same workloads, it might nullify any savings. If only there were a way to understand that without breaking their EULA...
beagle3 7y ago
Does this also apply to a locally installed version? It didn't in the past. "On Demand" is IIRC the cloud kdb+, which is thus much less predictable and easy to misrepresent.
- mfreed 7y ago
  Not my specialty, but website shows two versions available for download (at least for free non-commercial use): 64-bit "on-demand" or 32-bit. Both have a similar no benchmarking clause. https://kx.com/connect-with-us/download/ https://kx.com/connect-with-us/download/ 32-bit version: "(c) 32 Bit Kdb+ Software Evaluations. User shall not distribute or otherwise make available to any third party any report regarding the performance of the 32 Bit Kdb+ Software, 32 Bit Kdb+ Software benchmarks or any information from such a report unless User receives the express prior written consent of Kx to disseminate such report or information." But more broadly, feedback from the finance/capital markets suggest that the choice of kdb's proprietary Q query language vs. standard SQL is top-of-mind, expanding access and insights to time-series data from a small set of highly-specialized engineers to any of their developers / analysts / tools.
  - beagle3 7y ago
    Thanks. Interesting; I would be understanding if this was related to the “free” version, and the “bought and paid for” did not have such a restriction - but it might anyway. I have used kdb in the past, and it is friendly in the Unix sense (picky about who it makes friends with) - first time users often write queries that use slow scalar loops. Regardless, thanks; i’ll Be looking closely at timescaledb

by mfreed 7y ago

srazzaque 7y ago

That's a shame. I'm not sure what the rationale is for such clauses - especially where performance of your tech is known to be pretty good (as is the case for KDB+). There's definitely a huge opportunity to displace KDB+ as the mainstay for timeseries in capital markets. It is a premium product, but it obviously comes with a cost - both for the product and its operators. Assuming all use cases can be catered for, if one needs an extra N machines if using TimescaleDB to cater for the same workloads, it might nullify any savings. If only there were a way to understand that without breaking their EULA...

beagle3 7y ago

Does this also apply to a locally installed version? It didn't in the past. "On Demand" is IIRC the cloud kdb+, which is thus much less predictable and easy to misrepresent.

mfreed 7y ago
Not my specialty, but website shows two versions available for download (at least for free non-commercial use): 64-bit "on-demand" or 32-bit. Both have a similar no benchmarking clause. https://kx.com/connect-with-us/download/ https://kx.com/connect-with-us/download/ 32-bit version: "(c) 32 Bit Kdb+ Software Evaluations. User shall not distribute or otherwise make available to any third party any report regarding the performance of the 32 Bit Kdb+ Software, 32 Bit Kdb+ Software benchmarks or any information from such a report unless User receives the express prior written consent of Kx to disseminate such report or information." But more broadly, feedback from the finance/capital markets suggest that the choice of kdb's proprietary Q query language vs. standard SQL is top-of-mind, expanding access and insights to time-series data from a small set of highly-specialized engineers to any of their developers / analysts / tools.
- beagle3 7y ago
  Thanks. Interesting; I would be understanding if this was related to the “free” version, and the “bought and paid for” did not have such a restriction - but it might anyway. I have used kdb in the past, and it is friendly in the Unix sense (picky about who it makes friends with) - first time users often write queries that use slow scalar loops. Regardless, thanks; i’ll Be looking closely at timescaledb