Oracle db client [closed]

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Closed 9 years ago.

Could you please recommend me any freeware oracle sql client? It doesn't have to come with GUI, but it must be able to connect to remote database without any need for oracle drivers. I know there's SQL Plus or Sql Developer, but they can't be downloaded without registration. I want something really free where I will not be forced to anything...

Platform: Win/Debian

Thank you

Answer 1

Realistically, you're going to need to create a free account on OTN and download something from Oracle unless you are prepared to really sacrifice functionality (or download Oracle software from less than reputable sources).

Regardless of the database, you're always going to need some database-specific client software that understands how to communicate with the specific database and, generally, that exposes a reasonable API for the application. That either means installing the Oracle client to get things like SQL*Plus or it means using a JDBC driver and using a GUI that can use JDBC (like SQL Developer). You can get a third-party GUI like SQuirreL SQL that is GPL'd and downloadable without registration. But even something like that depends on you providing a JDBC driver for the specific database you want to connect to. Oracle provides a free JDBC driver but, as with other Oracle software, you need a free OTN account to download it.

You could potentially look to find someone that was working on a GPL-d Type 4 JDBC driver for Oracle. That would be somewhat tough since the underlying wire protocol API isn't public and would have to be reverse engineered (though a couple of companies have done so to produce their own wire protocol ODBC and JDBC drivers). It's unlikely that there is anything out there that is nearly as robust and efficient as the Oracle JDBC driver that is not a commercial project but if you have a Richard Stallman-esque dedication to using free software regardless of the inconvenience to you (though, if that were the case, the use of Windows and Oracle would seem odd) you could probably make due.

There are undoubtedly plenty of places that you could download Oracle's Type 4 JDBC driver other than an Oracle site, some of which probably don't require registration, but those are unauthorized mirrors so you would be risking either that there is some sort of corruption/ virus/ etc. or that the unauthorized mirror would get shut down.