Marketing PostgreSQL - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

This mail was sent to pgadmin-hackers list by Mark Radulovich
<radulovich@yahoo.com>. It is quite interesting:

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I've been following these mailing lists for over two years, and I guess nowis the time to chime in. I agree with Tom
thatan organized effort isnecessary. As such, I'd recommend the following: 

1 - Revamp the website. It's not bad, but it should be better designed to
highlight things for new users as well as all of the documentation that is on
it (I usually go to google instead of clicking around the website). I thinkthe basic site should have four key sections
- Application Developers,Database Admins, PG Core Developers, News & Downloads. 

2 - Get a list of people who can help with benchmarking efforts. This shouldbe for magazines/websites that want to
benchmarkPG against the competition,as well as benchmarking PG on various hardware with various options. Thiscould even
startout as a simple "Benchmarking PG FAQ" 

3 - Revamp the "Developer's Corner". I'm a web developer, not a PG developer,
but I still went here looking for info on building apps in Java, PHP, Perl,etc that need to connect to PG on the
backend.This is probably a simplerename, but application developers need a more prominent area. 

4 - Reach out and talk to authors & developers. We have a great database here- let's tell the world. This can be simple
-identify the major magazines &web sites, rank order them by relevant audience. Then, make sure we contactsomeone at
eachsite once a month, and that they get press releases viaemail. (email is essentially free, so why not send them out
toall themagazines/web sites?) 

5 - Show off PGAdmin!!! You'd think it was just an afterthought when looking
around the web site. We should promote that as a great tool to manage PG, so
that MS users can get the courage to try it out. We can't market it like MScan (unless someone around here dhas $40
billionlying around), but we cansure make PGAdmin more prominent on the site. 

6 - Improve the Windows port. I am convinced that mySQL is popular because a
windows user can download Apache, PHP, and mySQL onto his machine and learnhow it works. When he's ready, he can move
to*nix. PG doesn't have thatadvantage (no newbie is going to mess with cygwin setup on his Windows 98machine). Also,
justbecause Windows is not an optimal database platformdoesn't mean we shouldn't serve it better - a lot of people
(myselfincluded)cut their teeth on Windows computers, simply because they cannotafford the time or money to learn
anotherOS just to be able to use adatabase. 

7 - A simple thing, really. Can someone change the order of the months on the
mailing list archive home page? Scrolling down for 66 months, just to clickon the "by date" or "by thread" link for the
currentmonth just bugs me.Whether this is possible or not, I don't know - I just wanted to commentabout it because I'm
surethere are others with the same complaint. 


Anyway, these are just a couple of ideas I have. I have used PG since 7.0,and have been incredibly happy with it. As
forany competition with MySQL,so what? Let's learn from what they do better than us, and use that toincrease our
visibility.


On a side note, I'd like to thank *all* of the people that have contributedto PG. I started out in the open source
databaseworld with MySQL, but havegrown to love the reliability of PG. For the last several years, I have
beenresponsiblefor several MS SQL Server 2000 (and 7.0) servers. They have aneasy to use database, in that Enterprise
Manageris almost as simple asAccess (no flames, please!). They also market the heck out of it. I neverknew that PG
wouldever be as easy to use - until I used PGAdmin. I can onlysay one thing - WOW! (although I still use the command
line- old habits diehard...) Anyway, thanks to all of you for allowing me to play (and work!)with such a great
database.

Regards,
Mark Radulovich

PS - I'm willing to donate time to the website and the other items listed
above.

======================
Tom Lane wrote:

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
Frankly, my feeling is, as a "geek-to-geek" product, PostgreSQL is already
adequately marketed through our huge network of DBA users and code
contributors.

Well, mumble ... it seems to me that we are definitely suffering from
a "buzz gap" (cf missile gap, Dr Strangelove, etc) compared to MySQL.
That doesn't bother me in itself, but the long-term implications are
scary.  If MySQL manages to attract a larger development community as
a consequence of more usage or better marketing, then eventually they
will be ahead of us on features and every other measure that counts.
Once we're number two with no prayer of catching up, how long will our
project remain viable?  So, no matter how silly you might think
"MySQL is better" is today, you've got to consider the prospect that
it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So far I have not worried about that scenario too much, because Monty
has always treated the MySQL sources as his personal preserve; if he
hadn't written it or closely reviewed it, it didn't get in, and if it
didn't hew closely to his opinion of what's important, it didn't get in.
But I get the impression that he's loosened up of late.  If MySQL stops
being limited by what one guy can do or review, their rate of progress
could improve dramatically.

In short: we could use an organized marketing effort.  I really
feel the lack of Great Bridge these days; there isn't anyone with
comparable willingness to expend marketing talent and dollars on
promoting Postgres as such.  Not sure what to do about it.  We've
sort of dismissed Jean-Michel's comments (and those of others in
the past) with "sure, step right up and do the marketing" responses.
But the truth of the matter is that a few amateurs with no budget
won't make much of an impression.  We really need some professionals
with actual dollars to spend, and I don't know where to find 'em.
           regards, tom lane


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