Re: Democracy and organisation : let's make a revolution in - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Jean-Michel POURE wrote:
> Le Mardi 18 Juin 2002 18:42, Serge Adda a ?crit :
> > I am new to PostgreSQL, but I am interested in the Win32 port.
> > I have studied the architecture of other databases like Oracle.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> It seems clear that several teams are working without central point management 
> and contact:
> 
> - W32 port: at least a Japanese team, a PostgreSQL hacker team and a company are 
> working separately. This makes three separate efforts for the most important 
> project this year.

Funny you should mention that. I talked with three people on the phone
just yesterday in an attempt to get them together on the Win32 port.  I
have been hesitant to publicly try and join them together because they
haven't publicly stated if they are going to contribute their code
back to the project, or haven't been clear on _when_ they would
contribute it back.

My goal is to take the roadmap I posted on June 5, make a web page, and
get some agreement from the community on how to address each item:
http://candle.pha.pa.us/cgi-bin/pgtodo?win32
. 
Then, the groups can know how we prefer to have things done, and if they
contribute back quickly, the other projects can benefit from their work,
and we _don't_ get conflicting Win32 implementations contributed back to
the project.

> - Replication: development is slow although a lot of people would be 
> interested in helping. But there is no central organization apart from the 
> hackers-list.

I am on the replication mailing list:
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgreplication/projdisplay.php

That project is moving along, and hopefully they can merge their code
into the main tree so others can assist them.  Not sure what else we can
do.

> - Web site: a www list is working on several issues. Is there a central design 
> for all PostgreSQL site, like PHP does?
> 
> - Marketing: MySQL sucks and has a team of marketing sending junk technical 
> emails and writing false benchmarks. Who is in charge of marketing at 
> PostgreSQL? Where can I find a list of PostgreSQL features?

I skipped commenting on the marketing discussion because I was working
on a patch.  Probably our biggest problem compared to MySQL is that
MySQL is a single company behind a single database, while we have >4
companies behind PostgreSQL, and their thrust is promoting their company
rather than PostgreSQL itself.

While we have an excellent development team, we don't have a funded team
to go around to trade shows and write articles promoting PostgreSQL.  We
only have a very few people employed full-time with PostgreSQL, and it
usually takes a few full-time people to do just marketing.  Great Bridge
was really the only one to push PostgreSQL, and they are gone.

MySQL has such a team, and so does Oracle, and it helps.  Linux was in a
similar boat, with multiple companies behind Linux, and every one
promoting its own company rather than Linux itself.  We need large
PostgreSQL companies that promote themselves, and PostgreSQL along with
it.  Linux is in the same boat, with distributors promoting themselves
and Linux along with it.


> Personnaly, I agree with someone who wrote "Remember Betamax. It was the best 
> technical standard, but it died for commercial reasons". I don't want 
> PostgreSQL to be the next Betamax.

I thought the problem with Betamax was that Sony controlled the
standard, and other companies didn't like that.


I am always looking for more ideas in these areas.

--  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
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