Re: PL/pgSQL 2 - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:

On 09/02/2014 09:48 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:

As a case in point, EDB have spent quite a few man-years on their Oracle
compatibility layer; and it's still not a terribly exact match, according
to my colleagues who have looked at it.  So that is a tarbaby I don't
personally care to touch ... even ignoring the fact that cutting off
EDB's air supply wouldn't be a good thing for the community to do.

What any commercial entity and the Community do are mutually exclusive and we can not and should not determine what features we will support based on any commercial endeavor.

​From where I sit the "mutually exclusive" argument doesn't seem to be true - and in fact is something I think would be bad if it were.  We shouldn't be afraid to add features to core that vendors are offering but at the same time the fact that the Oracle compatibility aspects are commercial instead of in-core is a plus to help ensure that there are people making a decent living off PostgreSQL and thus are invested in its future

    Definitely we shouldn't be afraid to add any feature to core, if we (as a community) like it and can do it. And for sure, commercial versions and consultancy companies need to make a living and we should care of them all (that includes myself -my company-, of course). But there is plenty of space for all, specially with an Oracle compatibility layer. That would attract many many many users to postgres, and we all (including EDB, of course) would immediately benefit from it. Of course the community too.

    Plus, competition is never bad: it's the key to progress. Even if it would steal business from EDB, having to "compete" with PostgreSQL would foster them to improve and differentiate, becoming better. So I don't see any problem there.

    Of course, that's only my view :)

    Best,

    Álvaro