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

From Josh Berkus
Subject Re: The naming question (Postgres vs PostgreSQL)
Date
Msg-id 200708290945.49086.josh@agliodbs.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: The naming question (Postgres vs PostgreSQL)  (Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>)
List pgsql-advocacy
Andrew,

> You can't do "search/replace" on images. On the web page, for
> example, we have hdr_left.png right at the top.  Apparently, the
> person who designed some of these things for us is no longer around,
> and we don't have the font that was used.

Gavin did this, and it doesn't look as good.  So we'd have to also re-do some
of the design elements of the web site.

> I don't know the answers to these things; but it seems to me they
> _need_ answers before changes happen.  When you change the name of a
> piece of software, you have no problem communicating it to the users
> you're in regular contact with.  But the users that you're _not_ in
> regular contact with -- never mind the users you don't have yet --
> may end up confused or needlessly anxious, because you have taken
> something familiar and changed it in a way that is very visible.

And I'll point out that "users we don't know" comprises 80% (if you only count
DBAs) to 99% (if you count embedded users) of our userbase.  For example,
think of the 40 million hardware devices with PostgreSQL on them.  The
companies that make those devices will have to *automatically* handle a name
change, on a large-scale, long-distance-deployed basis.  If it's sufficiently
painful, some of them will just switch databases ... most could be using
SQLite or Derby anyway.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

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