PostgreSQL History Document - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy
From | elein |
---|---|
Subject | PostgreSQL History Document |
Date | |
Msg-id | 20041203184254.F6767@cookie.varlena.com Whole thread Raw |
Responses |
{Spam?} Re: PostgreSQL History Document
Re: PostgreSQL History Document Re: PostgreSQL History Document |
List | pgsql-advocacy |
This is what I have regarding Postgres (not PostgreSQL only) history. All of the quotes and people references were OK'd by the people who made them. This supplements Bruce's history in that this is the history as I experienced it, having been at UCB, worked at Ingres and then at Miró, et al. Bruce's history from the perspective of the postgres project and then PostgreSQL is better stated from those who experienced that although I tried to cover the transition to the pgdg. This history was written circa late 2002. Obviously it can be added to. I also have a picture of the original source tree branching to the various entities if anyone can stand my corny graphics. Robert Bernier--If people want to use it for part of the historical documents it is freely given to the PostgreSQL project. I wouldn't mind being cited as the original author, however, since I got the quotes and self reference. My writing can always use a good editing though. --elein INGRES Ingres was the predecessor of Postgres. Ingres was developed at UC Berkeley (1977-1985) under Dr. Michael Stonebraker's tutelage. Ingres was productized by Relational Technology, Inc which renamed itself Ingres in 1989. Ingres was known for its good technology, lousy marketing and for its mass exodus of engineers the day it was purchased by Computer Associates. POSTGRES Postgres followed Ingres (1986-1994) as the database project development at UC Berkeley. It was built by many grad students led by Michael Stonebraker. Postgres is an original implementation of an Object-Relational Database system. It used the query language _Quel_ as did early Ingres. ILLUSTRA In 1992, Michael Stonebraker, Gary Morganthaler, Michael Ubell and Paula Hawthorn joined with a small team to create the company Miró. Miró took a branch from UC Berkeley's Postgres source tree and immediately adapted it to use SQL, implemented (fixed) page level locking and a number of other key features. Over the next few years, Miró became Montage and then became, Illustra. The Illustra product was based University Postgres but had a much improved infrastructure. Illustra engineers and consultants were able to clean up a lot of graduate students' best intentions. Production tools and user interfaces were added. The term "DataBlades" was coined by Michael Stonebraker to mean a group of data types and their supporting functions. For example, the group of geometric data types and their functions was a DataBlade. POSTGRES In 1994 the University Postgres project was officially completed. However, Postgres was to be used as a foundation for the Tioga and the Mariposa projects. Andrew Yu, the Chief Programmer for Mariposa and Jolly Chen, a PhD. candidate at Berkeley, did some significant code clean up as well as adapted Postgres to use SQL in order to use it with Mariposa and Tioga. This version was released in 1995 as postgres95. Andrew Yu, reflecting on the history of PostgreSQL, said, "We didn't have postgres95 in mind when we [started] out with the clean up project. The release [was] more of an after-thought. We didn't set out to release it publicly. The popularity was a nice surprise. And the fact that it's going strong these many years after our initial work is beyond our wildest dreams." While working on their primary University projects, Yu and Chen continued maintaining postgres95 and its mailing lists until each left the University. After graduating in 1995 Andrew Yu went to work with Illustra and in 1996 Jolly Chen left the University to work with TCSI in Berkeley and then joined the start up WebLogic (acquired by BEA) which still is the foremost Java application server on the market. POSTGRESQL By 1996, neither Andrew nor Jolly Chen had much time to devote to Postgres95, but some members of the mailing list stepped up to the plate. Jolly remembers, "We appreciated [their] enthusiasm over the project. Since the code was already licensed in an open BSD-style, there wasn't much we needed to do as far as the turnover was concerned. They just set up some new mailing lists, ftp sites, and that was it. Neither Andrew nor I felt like we "owned" the project. After all, postgres was the result of many graduate students work over the years, not ours alone." This group became PostgreSQL Global Development Team. The group was composed of Marc Fournier in Ontario, Canada, who hosted the mailing lists and servers, Thomas Lockhart in Pasadena, California, Vadim Mikheev in Krasnoyarsk, Russia and Bruce Momjian in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The name of postgres95 was changed to PostgreSQL. Marc Fournier was able to provide server space and worked on maintaining the source tree with others providing the key patches and changes to maintain and improve the product. The development and release processes were based on FreeBSD's development model which Marc had been working with previously. In 1999, the Hub.Org networking organization was started in order to help provide funding for the infrastructure required by the PostgreSQL maintenance. INFORMIX Also in 1996 in the commercial arena, Informix acquired Illustra for its engineers and technology. The merge put Illustra, the database, on the back burner while the team in Oakland, California, along with engineers in Menlo Park, California and Portland, Oregon implemented the Object Relational technology into the existing multi-threaded Informix 7 to produce Informix 9. I was a part of that team. We worked against a killer one-year deadline for version 9.0. There were nine teams implementing user defined, row and set data, user defined types, user defined functions, the DataBlade API (my area), large object, virtual tables and virtual table indexes, DataBlades, and SQL extensions. Informix 9 went through several name changes but was commonly known as Informix IUS. With the halt of active Illustra database sales, some of us on the Illustra maintenance team approached Stonebraker with the idea to make the Illustra database open source. Stonebraker thought it was a good idea and so we initiated some informal discussions with the PostgreSQL Global Development team to consider turning over the code line to merge back their development branch. However, corporate Informix would never quite allow us to pursue the issue. In 2001, Informix split. Half of the company seceded and formed Ascential. The database portion of the business was sold to IBM. PgSQL,INC In 2000, Postgres, Inc. was formed with Marc Fournier as President/Director as a corporate front to PostgreSQL and to offer the corporate world commercial support for the product. The relationship between PostgreSQL and PgSQL, Inc has always been symbiotic. Core developers were and are part of PgSQL, Inc. GREATBRIDGE In July 2000 the company GreatBridge was formed by Frank Batten, Jr. (formerly with Red Hat) with the mission of providing marketing and support for the PostgreSQL product. It employed up to forty people, including Tom Lane, Bruce Momjian and Jan Weick from the Global Development team. Although Marc Fournier was a competitor of sorts, he remarked on the benefits of GreatBridge on PostgreSQL. "[T]hey allowed Tom Lane to focus on developing PostgreSQL features as a full time job, instead of as a hobby ... and it allowed Bruce to travel and evangelize PostgreSQL through providing talks to various organizations [and] increased visibility." Unfortunately, by August 2001, the money for GreatBridge was exhausted and the company closed down. POSTGRESQL The early progress and work of the the PostgreSQL Global Development Team is nicely documented by Bruce Momjian on the PostgreSQL web pages. The PostgreSQL project has been maturing and settling into a regular development cycle. 7.3 was released in November 2002 and 7.4 should be available late 2003. There are twenty three mailing lists hosted on postgresql.org. The one list one must subscribe to is pgsql-announce where releases are announced. The other most active lists are: * pgsql-admin * pgsql-bugs * pgsql-general * pgsql-sql * pgsql-hackers (for developers of postgresql) The mailing lists are also available both as newsgroups and as archives on the postgresql.org web site. It is required that you join the mailing list in order to post to the list, however, you can join and set an option so that you do not receive mail. This option enables you to read the lists from newsgroups and still post questions and answers. These mailing lists are the heartbeat of the project and are well tended to by each contributor. It is clear from reading these lists that the common goal of using, developing and supporting a world class database system is the foremost ideal held by the contributors. An advocacy website was built in November 2002 at advocacy.postgresql.org and enables people to contact PostgreSQL advocates in eight different languages, including English. Also in November 2002, the weekly column PostgreSQL General Bits was begun (REF: www.varlena.com/GeneralBits) by this author and in early 2003 Robert Treat began summarizing the weekly status of the project in messages to pgsql-announce. (REF: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/devhistory.html) (REF: http://www.ndim.edrc.cmu.edu/postgres95/www/pglite1.html) (REF: http://s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/Sequoia2000) (REF: http://s2k-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/postgres/papers/) (REF:http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2000/06/16/magazine/postgresql_history.html)
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