Chris, JPA,
The other BIG reasons why folks come to PostgreSQL are two groups:
The Django team, by putting PostgreSQL as the default database, has let
to a LOT of adoption in the Python world, and
Heroku and the Rails 3.1 team have made PostgreSQL the new default
database for Rails.
MySQL came to prominence partly on the coat-tails of PHP. We're doing
the same with Django and Rails.
A lot of the rest of our recent adoption falls under the heading of "not
screwing up". We've kept improving the database continuously. We've
listened to users about what they want. We've kept PostgreSQL a
non-profit community. We've avoided community splits and hostile forks.
We've been community-minded but business-friendly at the same time.
However, now is no time to relax. The new databases will continue to
improve, and they're very aggressive about recruiting new users. We're
"on top" now, but that just gives others an incentive to push us off.
--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com