Re: Are we losing momentum? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Tom Lane wrote:

> Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> > Several people have asked if we are losing momentum.
> 
> I don't think we are losing momentum considering the project in
> isolation --- things seem to be moving as well as they ever have,
> if not better.

I agree. I am surprised at the pace at which new features are added,
considering the relatively small number of people working on the project.

> 
> But I do sometimes worry that we are losing the mindshare war.
> We might be growing fine, but if we're growing slower than MySQL is,
> we've got a problem.  I was just in the local Barnes & Noble store
> yesterday, and could not help but notice how many books had "MySQL" in
> the title.  I didn't notice a single Postgres title (though I did not
> look hard, since I was just passing through the computer area).

I've considered this at length. I put some ideas together in December and
sent it off to the advocacy list. Most/all were not implemented -- not
least because I didn't do anything I said I would :-). But, some of the
most important things, such as a proper media kit, quotes for journos,
press contacts with authority to give fast/correct answers really need to
be implemented.

As for why MySQL has *significantly* more market share: there's not a lot
we can match them on. They have significant financial backing -- important
if you're an IT manager who actually knows very little about the technical
merit of the product. It has close ties to a *very* widely deployed
scripting language (PHP). MySQL AB employs marketing and 'advocacy' staff,
who attend conferences all over the world, speak several languages, and
have a fairly good understanding of the industry, open source, databases,
etc. They have infrastructure: tech support, on site support,
consultancy.

MySQL AB promotes MySQL as a high performance database, easy to use,
uncomplicated, with features implemented in a way which is syntactically
convenient -- not 'complicated' like Oracle, DB2 or Postgres.

Its hard to argue against that. At a *technical* conference I recently
spoke at, I was criticised for delivering a talk which was too advanced
and didn't explain Postgres for MySQL users. During a lecture series at a
university, I was criticised for not discussing Oracle instead of Postgres
-- students told me that Oracle will make them money and Postgres wont.

Regardless, I'm still of the opinion that if you build it, they will come
-- particularly costly features like replication, PITR, etc. But maybe
that is what the BSDs say about Linux?

Gavin