Re: Sourceforge moving to DB2 - Mailing list pgsql-general
From | Andrew Sullivan |
---|---|
Subject | Re: Sourceforge moving to DB2 |
Date | |
Msg-id | 20020814161829.B15973@mail.libertyrms.com Whole thread Raw |
In response to | Re: Sourceforge moving to DB2 ("Roderick A. Anderson" <raanders@acm.org>) |
Responses |
Re: Sourceforge moving to DB2
(Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>)
|
List | pgsql-general |
I'm redirecting this to -advocacy, because I guess it belongs there mostly. On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 11:36:39AM -0700, Roderick A. Anderson wrote: > On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > > > There is, however, the "open secret" problem still: not everyone in > > the company, including some very senior people, like talking very much > > about our use of PostgreSQL (although I believe that is changing). > > I am running into a similar situation. Commercial verses OpenSource. > When I suggested an OpenSource solution (in this case it wasn't a > database) I heard that no one knows it whereas they know about xxx. I had > never heard of xxx, oh well. One has heard this argument from time to time, but it always strikes me as bizarre. It relies essentially on an appeal to popularity. This is a well-known fallacy: you should do _x_ because some large percentage of the population does _x_. Aside from the fallaciousness (it's really a fallacy of relevance), in technology even more than in most areas with network effects, it is a really lousy argument: it entails both that you should adopt _exactly_ whatever everyone else is using (and then hope that the features you want get added), and that you should never innovate (because. for instance, a massive percentage of currently running programs are written in FORTRAN and COBOL). Indeed, the "nobody knows your product" is really just the old schoolyard taunt: "nobody likes you, y'know." Finding a way of dimplomatically saying, "Well, I and all my friends know xxx" is the only answer here. (Note that there is a slightly different argument for PostgreSQL to get around: "PostgreSQL isn't that popular, so it will be hard to find DBAs." This one happens to be true at the moment, although it is getting better.) > In another situation the client wanted bragging rights. At $1500 a pop > for extra licenses (5 i believe) they can brag all they want. Me, I'd > spend the money on infrastruture. I should think that in the period where big profits suddenly tun into US$6 billion losses, being able to brag that you're using "the most expensive machine in the hospital" will wear out your welcome at the bank pretty fast. I know that being able to replace $100,000 license fees with zeros is the sort of thing that makes _my_ CEO happy. A -- ---- Andrew Sullivan 87 Mowat Avenue Liberty RMS Toronto, Ontario Canada <andrew@libertyrms.info> M6K 3E3 +1 416 646 3304 x110
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