Databases
This article is about choice of database models and implementations.
Copyleft free to modify and free in cost software is strongly preferred over other solutions. Minimal modifications required could be another preference as that means maintenance of the chosen solution is minimized in that aspect.
Known types of databases
- Relational database provided by a RDBMS
- Subject-predicate-object database are provided by graph databases, specialized native triplestores and piggy-packing solutions that use an RDBMS to store and query the triplets and the networks they compose.
- Graph databases would intuitively appear more advanced than using RDF-triplet composed semantic networks.
- Object databases were a supposed fad in the late 80's and early 90's as w:relational algebra based systems are quite old.
Relational database
Together Consumerium and Consumium run all the 3 major free full fledged RDBMS there are: w:MariaDB, w:MySQL and w:Postgresql.
Relevant relational database powered software
- MediaWikis run on w:MySQL or the better and more ethical binary compatible drop-in replacement w:MariaDB. A recent fork by the original MySQL founders from MySQL.
The Netherlands server serving the Consumium free social media run on MariaDB 10
- https://d.consumium.org since 2013 and the rest mentioned on the landing page over there since 2016
- Postgresql is also in use working as data storage for w:GNU MediaGoblin at https://media.consumium.org
Subject-predicate-object database
Subject-predicate-object databases basically construct w:semantic networks from interlinked atomic units called a w:triplet so they are not fundamentally different from graph databases in functionality and utility offered.
These networks may be queried with a suitable query language such as w:SPARQL which in practice allows you to compose semantic queries.
Relevant subject-predicate-object database powered systems to interoperate with
Things to consider in selection of triplestore
A w:triplestore maybe a native implementation from ground up or be standing on the shoulders of a standard RDBMS system where actual w:SQL is formulated by the interpreter and then queried from SQL. This probably has upsides and downsides.