At The Bell Come Out Fighting

IBM Releases FREE DB2 Version For Windows/Linux

[iamlost]

The DB wars/choices get very serious as IBM releases an x86 version of DB2 to compete with the recently released MS SQLServer Express and Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Beta Release plus the longtime open source stalwarts MySQL and PostgreSQL.

DB2 Universal Database Express Edition for Linux and Windows [emphasis mine]
...
Providing the same core data server features as DB2 Universal Database Express Edition, DB2 Express-C offers a solid base to build and deploy all applications including: C/C++, Java, .NET, PHP, and more.
...
Free to download, develop, deploy, *distribute.
...
*Business partners may choose to register for free redistribution of DB2 Express-C with their products and applications.

System requirements:
[www-306.ibm.com ]

FAQ:
[www-306.ibm.com ]

Recommended Reading List:
[www-128.ibm.com ]

There are free tutorials, a forum, and all the IBM lustre.
The next few years should be extremely interesting.

[txbakers]

interesting indeed! DB2 was generally a bloated DB, best for the bigger processing machines such as AS/400, but I wouldn't mind the "lustre" of advertising that my database was IBM.