I have been a DBA for about 14 years, and I have been fortunate to meet hundreds of other DBAs throughout my career, many of whom are now my friends, even though most of them live thousands of miles away from me.

While there are exceptions, most of the DBAs *I* have met seem to fit into one or more of the following categories:

• Conservative, not necessarily in the political sense, but in how they conduct their lives.
• Stable, dependable, and reliable.
• Family-oriented, who puts their family first.
• Hard-working, doing whatever it takes to get the job done, and providing for people close to them.
• Community-minded, often helping others and volunteering their time for various community causes.
• People of faith, participating in their chosen religion.

In other words, DBAs tend to be mature, responsible individuals, generally the kind of person that you would want as friend, or as a next door neighbor.

This has got me thinking. Are DBAs drawn to their work (as a DBA) because the nature of DBA work fits well with the characteristics described above, or is it because employers seek out such individuals with these characteristics, because they know these types of individuals will do a good job in a position of great responsibility? Of course, there’s also the possibility that their personal maturity is actually a secondary consideration to their professional maturity, and the two just happen to feed off each other. What I mean is that I think a lot of DBAs have already had first careers and are coming to this new arena later in life. It could be that employers are actually drawn to those of us who are wise in the ways of the world, and bring a longer perspective to the role.

So, what do you think? Are DBAs drawn to their work because of their maturity, or do organizations who hire DBAs tend to prefer mature employees? Or am I full of baloney, and perhaps DBAs are no different than anyone else?

There are thousands of Transact-SQL scripts available on the Internet. They provide a great way to learn how other people approach and solve the same kind of problems you have and, in many cases, will save you from having to “reinvent the wheel”. When I need a new script, the first thing I always do is to check out the sizeable script libraries on SQLServerCentral.Com,Codeplex.Com, and other SQL Server-related websites. If I can’t find what I need, then I usually resort to a Google search. If that turns up nothing, only then do I resort to writing it from scratch.

While these T-SQL script archives are a wonderful resource, they also have a few drawbacks. The issue of variable code quality has been well-discussed and you should always carefully evaluate and test any online scripts before using them. A lesser known, but equally important issue, is the one of copyright. Sometimes the situation is clear-cut. I have seen a few scripts that carry a copyright notice explicitly stating that you can’t use the script without first obtaining permission from the author. In a few, ideal, cases the script author will have included some form of notice stating that the code has been published with a free public license, such as the one described at www.fsf.org. In this case, you will know that using the code won’t get you into any potential legal trouble.

However, in the vast majority of cases, the scripts are published without any form of copyright notice. Most people assume, incorrectly, that these scripts are freely available for reuse. In the United States, by law, any creative work is automatically copyrighted by its author, even if the author does not specifically include a copyright notice within the work. In other words, you need to get express permission from the author to use their script.

In theory, if you reuse a script that does not have any copyright notice, you leave yourself, and the organization you work for, open to potential legal action from the script author, or from whoever owns the copyright for the script. Furthermore, making a small modification to a script does not necessarily protect you from copyright issues. If you base the code you write on someone else’s code, you still may be violating copyright law.

The issue of copyright can get particularly sticky if the script author does not actually “own” the script. For example, it is not uncommon, especially at larger organizations, for employee contracts to stipulate that any creative work that an employee produces, while on the job, belongs to the organization. Any DBA subject to such an agreement should not share scripts on the Internet without specific permission from their organization. The problem is that, in the absence of a clear copyright statement, there is no way of telling who owns the script or even if the script author had permission to post it.

Because there are so many grey areas in copyright law, I would like to encourage all T-SQL script writers to:

1. Verify that you own the code you write and, if not, that you have permission to share it.
2. Include a free public license with any code you publish.

This way, people using your script can rest assured they are complying with copyright laws. I’d like to hear what you think. What is the best source of online scripts? How do you deal with the dilemma of scripts without any form of copyright notice? Do you think T-SQL script writers should include a free public license with the code they share?