On Apr 22, 5:46 am, "petethebl...@googlemail.com"
<petethebl...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 21 Apr, 22:40, "Paul Lautman" <paul.laut...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > Confidential!!! It will be a list of fields with data types, sizes and field
> > names. That is what all tables look like. How the !"!"££ can it be
> > confidential!
>
> That's what I was trying to say, but more politely.

Well, if we have a database that's available to the public through a
website, and some entreprising hacker wants to do an SQL injection,
they would get quite a leg up if they could look up the exact names of
our fields and tables.

Of course we are taking every precaution to prevent SQL injections and
other hacking attemps, and not broadcasting table definitions on the
internet is part of that

As far as confidential, saying that no table definition can be
confidential because it's made up of the same parts ( tables and
fields ) as any other database is like saying all programs are the
same because they're all made up of vairable and operators. It's the
arrangement of the parts that adds value. Surely, you would agree that
certain database structures are better than others for particular
problems. Or all they all the same? If they aren't the same, then a
business person who invested money to get a better data model might
want to protect their investment.

Why couldn't Microsoft release the code for Windows? After all, it's
made up of the same parts as any other program. And I'm not talking
security wise, but competition-wise -- for example, not giving OS
providers a leg up in creating platforms to run software written to
run with the Windows API.

Suppose we have a business model, expressed as a database, that is
superior to our competitions', and that allows us to ship products
faster for less money. Why would we want to then give our model to our
competition? We spent a lot of time and money building it; it doesn't
make business sense to give it to your competition for free.

</OT rant>