Re: The naming question (Postgres vs PostgreSQL) - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 09:40:29PM -0400, Ron Peterson wrote:
> 2007-08-27_17:37:19-0400 Greg Sabino Mullane <greg@turnstep.com>:
> > Ron Peterson notes:
> > > It's google'able.  Think of all of the documentation out there which
> > > refers to PostgreSQL.  When people start searching for 'postgres'
> > > they'll get virtually nothing.
>
> > Sure they do: 5.7 million results, including postgresql.org as the
> > first hit.  "Postgres" is the name the great majority of people use
> > anyway.
>
> 5.7 million is not "virtually nothing", but you can't say the "great
> majority" of people use the term "postgres" when "postgresql" returns 27
> million hits.  Call me daft, but I prefer to increase my odds of finding
> relevant results by a factor of four or more.

The google hits argument is no reason not to change the name. There will
*always* be more hits for PostgreSQL as long as that's the name that's
on our website, etc. So what? The fact that there's a competing term
that's popular enough to stand on it's own tells me we already have a
problem.

> > > Maybe some people don't like PostgreSQL, but why assume everyone
> > > likes 'Postgres' better.  I don't.
>
> > What's your alternative?
>
> I like the status quo.  If I _were_ going to change the name, I would
> wait until a major point release; and for the purpose of not appearing
> fickle, I'd try to market the name change with a better slogan than
> "PostgreSQL is now now Postgres - Because PostgreSQL is hard to spell!"

Folks, please stop talking about spelling, because that's *not* the
issue here at all. If it was, we'd just call the database asdf (or aoeu
for dvorak users).

This has always been about pronunciation. How to pronounce the name is
probably one of the most common questions I get... how can people think
that isn't hurting advocacy efforts?

> I think changing the name of a product is a really big deal, and it
> needs to be tied to something significant, or it appears flighty, and
> makes the project seem a little untethered.

I think we can just as easily make the change without any real fanfare
at all. I've gotten tired of using my real name in the PostgreSQL world
(because everywhere else I'm known by my nickname), so I've been slowly
migrating to not using my real name. I bet until recently (when I
changed the name part of my email address) very few people noticed. Even
with that change, no one has asked me about it yet. In the case of
PostgreSQL->Postgres, we're talking about dropping 2 letters and
changing the case of one, which is very minor. I see no reason why we
can't just silently make the change and let it be.

> I also think Postgres sounds too much like Ingres.  Nothing against
> Ingres or PostgreSQL's heritage, but it sounds anachronistic to me.

If anything I think it might lend more credence to Ingres, but I'm not
terribly worried about that. Afterall, Postgres was created with the
idea of improving the ideas that were the foundation of Ingres.
--
Decibel!, aka Jim Nasby                        decibel@decibel.org
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)