Thread: PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot
On Sun, 2003-03-16 at 21:20, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/16/2233232.shtml?tid=185 Uh, which part of that is "flamage", exactly? Cheers, Neil -- Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC
This for instance: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=57317&threshold=0&commentsort=0&tid=185& mode=thread&cid=5525863 Chris ----- Original Message ----- From: "Neil Conway" <neilc@samurai.com> To: "Christopher Kings-Lynne" <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au> Cc: "PostgreSQL Advocacy" <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org> Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 11:09 AM Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot > On Sun, 2003-03-16 at 21:20, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > > http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/16/2233232.shtml?tid=185 > > Uh, which part of that is "flamage", exactly? > > Cheers, > > Neil > > -- > Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC > > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org >
On Sun, 2003-03-16 at 22:23, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=57317&threshold=0&commentsort=0&tid=185& > mode=thread&cid=5525863 Well, sure -- not all the comments are going to be entirely positive. But from the comments I read, the overall impression of PostgreSQL was fairly positive. Cheers, Neil -- Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC
Hi everybody Yesterday I got a mail from the advocacy site. A person subscribed to a PostgreSQL mailinglist and now is surprised that he found his email adress at google. He is blaming the PostgreSQL-team for making his email public saying that this is not a professional behaviour and that he is disappointed. He requests to cancel his email-adress from the archivess immediately saying that he never gave the right to the PG-team to make his adress public. I answered him that he himself made his adress public by writing in a public mailinglist and he should contact the listowner for any questions or problems. How to avoid such annoying discussions? Are there any legal statements to point those people to? Greetings Conni
Neil Conway wrote: > Well, sure -- not all the comments are going to be entirely positive. > But from the comments I read, the overall impression of PostgreSQL was > fairly positive. I think they were extremely positive. I did not count one single post regarding postgres as negative. A few mentions of historical problems (mostly baseless), that's all. People are *still* claiming mysql is faster, which it isn't, except for inserts. Oh well. Mysql is just more organized from a marketing standpoint and has a press-friendly windows port. But all this is changing :) Merlin
On Mon, 2003-03-17 at 15:43, Merlin Moncure wrote: > Mysql is just more organized from a marketing standpoint and has a > press-friendly windows port. <rant> One thing that has been bothering me lately is the amount of FUD that is used in the pro-mysql arguments. The whole "it will have X feature in release Y" is classic FUD. If you can remember back to when they had statements explaining why transactions were bad, or foreign keys were bad, these are also classic FUD tactics. (ie. paint your oppositions strengths as weaknesses). It surprises me that the open source community, we is usually pretty anti-FUD, has let this go on for so long. I know it's quite likely that we've done some spinning in the past, generally I think the people promoting postgresql have done a good job of avoiding spin and have steered clear of these types of underhanded things, and I think the quality of posters on all of these message boards supporting us reflects this. </rant> Robert Treat
Robert Treat wrote: > One thing that has been bothering me lately is the amount of FUD that is > used in the pro-mysql arguments. That is a serious problem. I'd like to point out that on Slashdot, at least, there was a lot more of FUD (mostly true) about mysql that got higher mods than postgres. Mysql was compared to a flat file system with sql, and even was (insult of insults) compared unfavorably to access. The real question is: why is mysql getting much greater attention from the mainstream press? Some of the mainstream news sites are providing benchmarks and comparisons between mysql and big iron. Where is postgres? A lot of the information on the web is outdated and/or deliberately set up to magnify postgres's one performance weakness (if you call it that): insert performance outside of wrapped transactions. This is the challenge to the advocacy group: advocate. Write benchmarks and editorials and submit them to sites like phpbuilder and Slashdot. Since toast came out, there is really very little use for any other database unless you absolutely have to deploy on windows or require replication. My company is reluctant to move to postgres from sql server because of limited visibility (slammer is helping tho). Merlin
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of Merlin Moncure > Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 10:44 AM > To: Robert Treat > Cc: PostgreSQL Advocacy > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot > > > Robert Treat wrote: > > One thing that has been bothering me lately is the amount of FUD that > is > > used in the pro-mysql arguments. > > That is a serious problem. I'd like to point out that on Slashdot, at > least, there was a lot more of FUD (mostly true) about mysql that got > higher mods than postgres. Mysql was compared to a flat file system > with sql, and even was (insult of insults) compared unfavorably to > access. > > The real question is: why is mysql getting much greater attention from > the mainstream press? Because we're slackers! ;-) Some of the mainstream news sites are providing > benchmarks and comparisons between mysql and big iron. Where is > postgres? A lot of the information on the web is outdated and/or > deliberately set up to magnify postgres's one performance weakness (if > you call it that): insert performance outside of wrapped transactions. > > This is the challenge to the advocacy group: advocate. Write benchmarks > and editorials and submit them to sites like phpbuilder and Slashdot. > Since toast came out, there is really very little use for any other > database unless you absolutely have to deploy on windows or require > replication. My company is reluctant to move to postgres from sql > server because of limited visibility (slammer is helping tho). That's only part of it. Since I'm a developer, I think more software is key. Getting products that require MySQL is a big downside to PostgreSQL. Most of the time too, those products are great and win over a lot of people. (vBulletin, Slashdot.org) Of course those were written for MySQL for all the wrong reasons as well. Such famous apps give MySQL credibility where it should not. (Well, I can't say that technically - I have to say that the app designers chose MySQL, for what reasons, we don't know (usually popularity but it may have been more analytical than that.) but somehow Joe blow things MySQL will be good for his app too) So I see our problem more one of popularity for apps. Why that is, is another question.
Jason Hihn wrote: > That's only part of it. Since I'm a developer, I think more software is > key. > Getting products that require MySQL is a big downside to PostgreSQL. Most > of > the time too, those products are great and win over a lot of people. > (vBulletin, Slashdot.org) Of course those were written for MySQL for all > the > wrong reasons as well. Such famous apps give MySQL credibility where it > should not. (Well, I can't say that technically - I have to say that the > app > designers chose MySQL, for what reasons, we don't know (usually popularity > but it may have been more analytical than that.) but somehow Joe blow > things > MySQL will be good for his app too) > > So I see our problem more one of popularity for apps. Why that is, is > another question. MySQL works just fine for your typical web app and is optimized for that purpose. For example, they added a query caching feature which IMHO is useless except in a web environment. Their catering to the web crowd has helped establish them in the public eye. Postgres is the database of choice for business apps. This is a tough market to crack because of the conservatism of business planners and their well funded ability to buy top dollar software. Databases are like boxing: if two players go the distance, the judges give it to the champ. I think in the long run, the 'business first' strategy will prevail. Database developers who can solve business problems usually make a lot more money than web developers. Since the dot.com fallout, this disparity has increased. This means a despite a smaller user base, the postgres community will be better funded and enjoy more of the top talent. Also, postgres has enjoyed and will continue to enjoy better support from the academic community because of its closer adherence to the relational model, maybe the closest of any major dbms. As for the companion apps, postgres is much less reliant on external tools than other dbs because of the extremely powerful client interfaces. I would like to see better dts services and better xml support (xml/edi) for adoption by businesses. A win32 port is absolutely crucial to start zapping sql server, which has virtually no direct competition for 2nd tier database deployments, and also to the embedded market which now relies on mysql, access, or FoxPro. Also, integration with Delphi/Kylix could use some press. This is a fantastic rad environment for win32/linux. Merlin
> That's only part of it. Since I'm a developer, I think more software is key. > Getting products that require MySQL is a big downside to PostgreSQL. Most of > the time too, those products are great and win over a lot of people. > (vBulletin, Slashdot.org) Of course those were written for MySQL for all the > wrong reasons as well. Such famous apps give MySQL credibility where it > should not. (Well, I can't say that technically - I have to say that the app > designers chose MySQL, for what reasons, we don't know (usually popularity > but it may have been more analytical than that.) but somehow Joe blow things > MySQL will be good for his app too) Hell yeah. Get this. We just installed Bugzilla at our company to do bug tracking. WTF!?!?!? It uses table locks every time someone submits a new bug to ensure integrity (since it doesn't assume foreign keys). It actually has a "feature" where if you have a high traffic site, then it uses MySQL's replication support to create a read-only duplicate of the entire database, to enable people to do searches while an insert is occurring!!!! Bloody hell!! Chris
On Tuesday 18 March 2003 08:31 pm, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > Hell yeah. Get this. We just installed Bugzilla at our company to do bug > tracking. WTF!?!?!? > > It uses table locks every time someone submits a new bug to ensure > integrity (since it doesn't assume foreign keys). It actually has a > "feature" where if you have a high traffic site, then it uses MySQL's > replication support to create a read-only duplicate of the entire database, > to enable people to do searches while an insert is occurring!!!! > > Bloody hell!! You know bugzilla runs on postgresql now right? IIRC Red Hat even has rpm's for it (yeah, I know your a bsd guy, but yeah, i also know you should know this) If anyone needs convincing, tell them that red hat uses the postgresql version of bugzilla to power thier bugzilla database. Time for yall to switch mate! Robert Treat
> -----Original Message----- > From: Merlin Moncure [mailto:merlin.moncure@rcsonline.com] > Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 5:34 PM > To: Jason Hihn > Cc: PostgreSQL Advocacy > Subject: RE: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot ... > MySQL works just fine for your typical web app and is optimized for that > purpose. For example, they added a query caching feature which IMHO is > useless except in a web environment. Their catering to the web crowd > has helped establish them in the public eye. > > Postgres is the database of choice for business apps. This is a tough > market to crack because of the conservatism of business planners and > their well funded ability to buy top dollar software. Databases are > like boxing: if two players go the distance, the judges give it to the > champ. > > I think in the long run, the 'business first' strategy will prevail. > Database developers who can solve business problems usually make a lot > more money than web developers. Since the dot.com fallout, this > disparity has increased. This means a despite a smaller user base, the > postgres community will be better funded and enjoy more of the top > talent. Also, postgres has enjoyed and will continue to enjoy better > support from the academic community because of its closer adherence to > the relational model, maybe the closest of any major dbms. You make an astute observation that I think should become a strategy of the advocacy team. That is to portray MySQL as a "hobby" database, but Postgres as a "production" database. I think this is a very easy stance to take, since I've always thought that. Anyone caught arguing that MySQL is better will show how much they don't know about Postgres or real databases. Also with this stance, the two DB's will be able to cooperate and help publicize OSS successes without having to cut each other down. Then though, we must concede that MySQL is "good enough" for at least "armature" (hobby) usage; and that is another statement that I agree with. > As for the companion apps, Postgres is much less reliant on external > tools than other dbs because of the extremely powerful client > interfaces. I would like to see better dts services and better xml > support (xml/edi) for adoption by businesses. A win32 port is > absolutely crucial to start zapping sql server, which has virtually no > direct competition for 2nd tier database deployments, and also to the > embedded market which now relies on mysql, access, or FoxPro. Both win32 and replication are big "requirements". I can delay the win32 requirement for a while, and I can suffer through huge pg_dumps for the time being. If that wasn't the case, I'd be else where! > Also, integration with Delphi/Kylix could use some press. This is a > fantastic rad environment for win32/linux. I've heard of it, but never used it. I took a look long enough to know that I'd need to take a longer look later ;-) -J
Guys, > You make an astute observation that I think should become a strategy of the > advocacy team. That is to portray MySQL as a "hobby" database, but Postgres > as a "production" database. I think this is a very easy stance to take, > since I've always thought that. Anyone caught arguing that MySQL is better > will show how much they don't know about Postgres or real databases. And why are we "competing" against MySQL, exactly? Look, the people who use MySQL aren't going to use PostgreSQL. They're looking for a fast, simple database with no DBA requirements, which IS NOT POSTGRESQL. Such databases have their niche just as we have ours. Our "competitors" are MS SQL, SQLAnywhere, Oracle, and DB2. Business-class databases. The tech press likes to focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL because they haven't caught up to the idea that an OSS database could compete with commmercial offerings. When *you* focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL, YOU ARE BUYING IN TO THEIR IGNORANCE, and helping the press compartmentalize Postgres as an alternative to MySQL. Now, enough, already. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 12:20 PM > To: Jason Hihn; Merlin Moncure > Cc: PostgreSQL Advocacy > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot > > > Guys, > > > You make an astute observation that I think should become a > strategy of the > > advocacy team. That is to portray MySQL as a "hobby" database, > but Postgres > > as a "production" database. I think this is a very easy stance to take, > > since I've always thought that. Anyone caught arguing that > MySQL is better > > will show how much they don't know about Postgres or real databases. > > And why are we "competing" against MySQL, exactly? Good question. > Look, the people who use MySQL aren't going to use PostgreSQL. They're > looking for a fast, simple database with no DBA requirements, > which IS NOT > POSTGRESQL. Such databases have their niche just as we have ours. I don't believe that is the case. I think many people are being mislead through it's frequent mention in the press. > Our "competitors" are MS SQL, SQLAnywhere, Oracle, and DB2. > Business-class > databases. The tech press likes to focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL because > they haven't caught up to the idea that an OSS database could > compete with > commercial offerings. When *you* focus on MySQL vs. > PostgreSQL, YOU ARE > BUYING IN TO THEIR IGNORANCE, and helping the press > compartmentalize Postgres > as an alternative to MySQL. The two share the same development style (open source). Unfortunately, those who don't already know, read these articles and get the wrong impressions. I know Postgres is more appropriately compared to Oracle, but they don't. If they see all the MySQL press and then see how bad it is as a DB, they will probably assume that Postgres falls into the same category. And that is the key. That's why it's not enough already - Because newbies often rely on publicity to make decisions for them. That's why we have the advocacy group. And sir, when I "buy into their ignorance" it is only to grow the dichotomy of the two. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we shouldn't have a MySQL separation effort. Maybe we should just let ourselves be lumped in with them. *Shudder* I think not. Therefore we must engage in these "battles" against MySQL. I think we'd be worse off not fighting them. We could go on battling away against MS SQL, Oracle, DB2, but people will still ask "How does it compare to MySQL?" That will be the case for everyone who works with DBs as a hobby and not professionally.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > And why are we "competing" against MySQL, exactly? > > Look, the people who use MySQL aren't going to use PostgreSQL. They're > looking for a fast, simple database with no DBA requirements, which IS NOT > POSTGRESQL. Such databases have their niche just as we have ours. Sorry, but I must disagree with this. MySQL is as much our competitor as Oracle is. Simply look at the number of open-source apps that use MySQL instead of PostgreSQL to see why this is so. I also see plenty of crossover as far as being a DBA is concerned: real DBAs are using both products, everyday, on a wide variety of technical projects. People who use MySQL *are* going to use PostgreSQL - the conversion happens all the time. We should be encouraging the use of Postgres in all niches. Remember, having a successful product is about much more than being the best from a scientific/technical standpoint. Decisions are made on a number of factors, such as supported platforms, market saturation, availablity of skilled workers, interface tools, use in other existing products, commercial support, etc. Every decision on which database system to use affects the Postgres project, directly or indirectly. I'm also tired of the attitude that MySQL is somehow "beneath" us, and a "hobby" database. Sure, PostgreSQL is more feature-rich, but that growth is asymptotic, and MySQL is moving forward and adding features all the time. In almost every other aspect except the actual database engine, MySQL is the better project. MySQL are PostgreSQL are going to grow together quicker than they grow apart. We should treat them with respect as a friendly rival. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200303191259 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: http://www.turnstep.com/pgp.html iD8DBQE+eLNavJuQZxSWSsgRAu6+AJ9UFXGvOAJUUWj9BP0EfgQbOac17wCgwyOJ IWcmrQ4EZGT5YdM1a86zpQ8= =XDI2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Jason, Greg, > The two share the same development style (open source). Unfortunately, those > who don't already know, read these articles and get the wrong impressions. I > know Postgres is more appropriately compared to Oracle, but they don't. If > they see all the MySQL press and then see how bad it is as a DB, they will > probably assume that Postgres falls into the same category. <snip> > And sir, when I "buy into their ignorance" it is only to grow the dichotomy > of the two. Maybe I am wrong, maybe we shouldn't have a MySQL separation > effort. Maybe we should just let ourselves be lumped in with them. *Shudder* > I think not. Therefore we must engage in these "battles" against MySQL. I > think we'd be worse off not fighting them. But you see, that's exactly my point. We will *not* differentiate ourselves from MySQL by slamming them at every opportunity. We will only build PostgreSQL's user base by championing Postgres' features and standards-compliance. To give you an analogy: Three years ago, Willie Brown and Client Reilly were the two lead candidates for Mayor of San Francisco. They spent the first six months of their campaign slinging mud at each other ... to the point that many San Franciscans said that they would stay home from the polls rather than vote for either of them. Then, on the last day of the filing deadline, Tom Ammiano announced that he was running ... and grabbed 49% of the runnoff vote. Or another analogy: Microsoft recently hired a PR think tank to analyze their efforts to stamp out Linux through their various FUD campaigns against Linux, OSS, and the GPL. The think tank found out that MS's attempt to slam Linux had, in fact, made people more aware of OSS, and more interested in it, than they would have been on their own. I think you can see the analogy, yes? We should promote Postgresql by promoting Postgresql ... NOT by slamming MySQL. -- -Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On 19 Mar 2003 at 9:20, Josh Berkus wrote: > Guys, > > > You make an astute observation that I think should become a strategy of the > > advocacy team. That is to portray MySQL as a "hobby" database, but Postgres > > as a "production" database. I think this is a very easy stance to take, > > since I've always thought that. Anyone caught arguing that MySQL is better > > will show how much they don't know about Postgres or real databases. > > And why are we "competing" against MySQL, exactly? > > Look, the people who use MySQL aren't going to use PostgreSQL. They're > looking for a fast, simple database with no DBA requirements, which IS NOT > POSTGRESQL. Such databases have their niche just as we have ours. I have a growing feeling that the basis of perception that postgresql is slow stems from the arcane and age old defaults postgresql ships with. I know that they will be bumped in the next release but that does not help much to heal the mind share loss over the years.. Besides postgresql requires shared memory which is a system resource. I don't know much about mysql but my guess would be they can get as much resource runtime without intervention of root or kernel. That definitely plays to their advantage when people run out of box installations.. > Our "competitors" are MS SQL, SQLAnywhere, Oracle, and DB2. Business-class > databases. The tech press likes to focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL because > they haven't caught up to the idea that an OSS database could compete with > commmercial offerings. When *you* focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL, YOU ARE > BUYING IN TO THEIR IGNORANCE, and helping the press compartmentalize Postgres > as an alternative to MySQL. Agreed. Druming our features is the way to go. Not slamming other *OR* defending ourselves. Bye Shridhar -- byob, v: Believing Your Own Bull
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > Jason, Greg, [snip quote from Jason] > But you see, that's exactly my point. We will *not* differentiate > ourselves from MySQL by slamming them at every opportunity. First, you should not address both of us but only respond to Jason's points. I in no way advocate slamming MySQL, but we should not ignore them either. Your initial argument was that we should not be competing against MySQL. The comparison between the two will continue to be made by many people for a long time to come. We cannot simply decide they are not worthy of our time and stand on the sidelines, waiting for the PostgreSQL vs. Oracle match. - -- Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200303201017 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: http://www.turnstep.com/pgp.html iD8DBQE+edzzvJuQZxSWSsgRAot0AKCupYTLjXj7jnODTVlSn0Tq0I4ILACgnbjr rJMA+UY37fcI8Y8Uzt7zhN0= =j9oR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Wed, 2003-03-19 at 22:42, Shridhar Daithankar wrote: > On 19 Mar 2003 at 9:20, Josh Berkus wrote: > > Our "competitors" are MS SQL, SQLAnywhere, Oracle, and DB2. Business-class > > databases. The tech press likes to focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL because > > they haven't caught up to the idea that an OSS database could compete with > > commmercial offerings. When *you* focus on MySQL vs. PostgreSQL, YOU ARE > > BUYING IN TO THEIR IGNORANCE, and helping the press compartmentalize Postgres > > as an alternative to MySQL. > > Agreed. Druming our features is the way to go. Not slamming other *OR* > defending ourselves. > The truth is that the reason we have many of these postgresql vs. mysql is because advocates of mysql often use old information and bad database theory in their arguments. For example, if you look at other open source databases like firebird or sapdb, you never hear arguments that transactions, triggers, foreign keys, views, subselects etc... are unnecessary. IMHO "competing" with mysql is pointless, because I think we already "beat" them on our own merits; but we do need to defend ourselves when people make false claims about postgresql, and we need should advocate sound database fundamentals as well, whether they come from mysql, oracle, m$ or whoever. Robert Treat
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org]On Behalf Of > greg@turnstep.com > Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 10:24 AM > To: pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL flamage on Slashdot > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Jason, Greg, > > [snip quote from Jason] > > > But you see, that's exactly my point. We will *not* differentiate > > ourselves from MySQL by slamming them at every opportunity. > > First, you should not address both of us but only respond to Jason's > points. I in no way advocate slamming MySQL, but we should not ignore > them either. Your initial argument was that we should not be competing > against MySQL. The comparison between the two will continue to be > made by many people for a long time to come. We cannot simply decide they > are not worthy of our time and stand on the sidelines, waiting for the > PostgreSQL vs. Oracle match. Whoa, I never advocated 'slamming' either. In my 1st message I said I was glad that we don't have to that. The word "hobby" is not nessasailry slamming. There are lots of good "hobby" things, like Linux, that are great products and leaders in their field. (Note: Linux is making the crossover to "professional" now, please, no flames) (and in time, MySQL may make that crossover too) I use 'hobby' vs. 'professional' to indicate robustness. I don't know about you, but I'd not use a bank that used MySQL. If they used Postgres, ok. Most of the "battling" or "slamming" is done by the vocal uninformed few that use incorrect arguments. "MySQL has transactions"+"MySQL is faster than Postgres"!="MySQL is faster than Postgres when transactions are used", but you'll find most people are arguing just that. Furthermore, these same MySQL people don't bother tuning Postgres. We all know how the config file is conservative. I think they are going to address that in the next release: there have been looong threads about that already in the PG-General list. In all my usage of the two, they seem to be comparable in speed, YMMV. But I'd rather lose 10% maybe even 20% and have all those great features. How many people tune their disks with hdparm? How many people tune their NFS block size? You can expect an even fewer amount to tune a much more complex beast like Postgres. -J