>I am interested in learning, and perhaps applying, Client-Server. Is MySQL recommended for this? Any serious limitations compared to more expensive systems, like Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server?
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>TIA, Hilmar.

If you want just to learn and prototype applications, you may want to use MSDE, which is free and it is "just like SQL Server 7" but does not handle many connections. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/msde/default.asp

I believe MS changed the name of MSDE to something else with SQL Server 2000. But there is also a free version that you can use to learn and play with SQL Server 2000.