Thread: Linux User (& Developer) Expo 2004 - A brief account
This is a brief summary for people - Oliver is busy the next day/two and I'll be out and about Friday, so I thought it might be sensible to get some notes down. I'll post another message early tomorrow morning with requests for action - if anyone can run with these, that would be much appreciated - I've got 2 days of work to catch up on. Held in London's Olympia centre, this was Tue/Wed this week. Attended by Oliver Elphick and Richard Huxton (me). We had about 2m of frontage on the outside of a small square called the ".Org village" along with KDE, BSD, Linux user groups, Scribus DTP package etc. Our place was sponsored by uklinux.net - a linux-friendly ISP. Oliver had brought a laptop, tower PC with (large, good) flat screen and laser printer. We had one socket between about 4 groups, so first thing Tuesday morning the power failed and an electrician had to be fetched. We had no poster with logo nor any brochures. The laser printer was probably what tripped the power first time, so we couldn't print any (I had put together a 1-page summary of useful resources). After lunch the show organisers were kind enough to let me use one of their printers, so I ran off a dozen handouts (it was an inkjet, so this was a slow process). On the Wednesday, Oliver printed off a run of summaries he'd put together before the show started, so we were OK then. On both days, Oliver had a slideshow running on the flat-screen monitor. Questions asked (in no particular order): Q. So how do pronouce [points]? If anyone has a time machine handy, perhaps we could change PostgreSQL to something people could say. On the other hand, they stepped forward to ask, so maybe it's a good ice-breaker. Q. Why are you better than mysql then? (Not as often as I'd feared) Sometimes they obviously knew the answer, sometimes were genuinely curious. Some observed that MySQL AB were much better known, we responded with the usual about marketing budgets. People seemed quite interested that Oliver and myself had just volunteered ourselves for this (of course, we both had our business cards with us too, so it's not completely altruistic). Q. Who funds it? Who writes it? (a couple of times each) A few people puzzled about how PG could work. Especially as we made comparisons to Oracle, rather than other open-source projects. I think this is partly because a database is a big expensive thing, rather than the sort of project a teenager might start from his bedroom. Q. How do you compare to database-X? Mostly Oracle people showing an interest, then MySQL questions then MS-SQL and finally one Progress user. The more "business-y" types tended to be looking to either replace Oracle or were expanding database-usage and wanted to avoid any further licence costs. Q. Can we do Y like we do with X? People interested in porting or looking to start a new project. Two main areas seemed to stand out - XML and Java. Unfortunately, these two areas are ones where Oliver and I weren't experts. Q. Copyright issues with Oracle pl/sql and plpgsql? From an ex Oracle employee??? Couldn't see there were any as they're not really similar enough. Q. How stable is it? How far can it scale? Scalability didn't seem that big an issue for the people we talked to. Quad-CPU Intel seemed to be what they were thinking of as large. Same with database size - they wanted to make sure we could handle GB rather than TB. As far as stability goes, the most serious bug I could remember from the last year/two was that one where you could lock on startup at a block-boundary in WAL (or whatever the details were - 7.3.2 iirc). Some people looked sceptical when told that as users we didn't really think about PG's reliability any more. Suggested they check the mailing lists/release notes and also mentioned the tender document for Afilias' .org bid (which is hopefully still online, since I said it was). Q. Limitations/New features coming up? I said for me nested transactions was the most eagerly awaited. I was more likely to forget something on our feature-set than find a problem. Having a simple to setup replication system might be a useful one to mention. Pros (no order): 1. A good feeling from those who stopped at the stand. Those who knew about PG seemed well-disposed to it, those that didn't seemed quite impressed by what they saw. Several of the people were clearly senior decision makers in a variety of companies, and one was from a household name in the UK. 2. PgAdmin Easier to show people things with a GUI. Some were quite surprised by the sophistication of it. 3. Oliver's slideshow Less for any information people got from it, but it gave them something to look at briefly before making eye contact, or something to read if both of us were already talking. 4. We were busy Sometimes both dealing with different people, neither of us had time to wander around the show. I know a couple of people wandered away because we were already dealing with other people. I didn't keep an accurate count, but I'd guess 20 people each day, and some of them took a while to discuss issues in detail. Cons: 1. The stand looked empty and we didn't have any brochures. We were among the worst presented stands on the first day (and I'm talking the .org ones, not the paid for). Second day our poster arrived and we didn't look so bad. People seemed not care, possibly because we were both volunteers, but then if people were put off, we probably wouldn't have seen them. 2. We didn't know the answers to some questions. Particularly XML/Java, but I'm assuming the situation would be the same for any set of people/set of features. 3. Not enough networking Should have gone round making introductions with all the other stalls. Hoped to have time to talk to Novell/SuSe and see what their line on databases was, but no time. Recommendations: 1. PDFs of PostgreSQL+Logo in A4/A3/A0 (and whatever the US equivalents are) 2. At a busy show, you ideally want 3 people, one of whom can spend time talking to other exhibitors. 3. A single-page handout: A4, single and double-sided options for cheap printing so every passer-by can grab one. 4. A short slide-show in OOo format - say 6 sections, 12 pages 5. Six handouts covering each section in more detail - for reproduction in better quality and to be handed out to those who take an interest in that section. 6. A volunteer team of topic experts: internals/java/xml/php+perl/... whatever. Doesn't need to be publicised widely, but I don't even know who I should ask about our XML capabilities. 7. Funding would be nice, but organisation is more important. We need news items before and after the show. We need to know what shows are happening. We need to make sure all printing is ready, and those involved have brushed up on areas they don't know enough about. 8. We need an elephant. If IBM can have a helicopter at the show I want an elephant. Oh, and a shovel... And Finally: All our plaudits should go to Oliver who lugged a PC,screen,printer and laptop from the Isle of Wight to London. He also provided the slide-show and printed off the handouts for the second day. Without him, we wouldn't have had a presence there, and if we had it would have been me clutching a dozen handouts, looking forlorn. Really Finally: In case anyone is in doubt, I felt the show was a success for PostgreSQL. There's probably two shows a year in London, and perhaps one in Birmingham/Manchester. We should probably try to be at all 3 if possible. -- Richard Huxton Archonet Ltd
Richard Huxton wrote: > Held in London's Olympia centre, this was Tue/Wed this week. Attended > by Oliver Elphick and Richard Huxton (me). We had about 2m of > frontage on the outside of a small square called the ".Org village" > along with KDE, BSD, Linux user groups, Scribus DTP package etc. Our > place was sponsored by uklinux.net - a linux-friendly ISP. Thanks for this summary. I've run PostgreSQL booths at two expositions in the last 6 months and I can tell you that I've mostly experienced the same things (except that we had better luck with the equipment) and I totally agree with your thoughts about enhancements. > Questions asked (in no particular order): > > Q. So how do pronouce [points]? > If anyone has a time machine handy, perhaps we could change > PostgreSQL to something people could say. On the other hand, they > stepped forward to ask, so maybe it's a good ice-breaker. Precisely > Q. Why are you better than mysql then? (Not as often as I'd feared) > Sometimes they obviously knew the answer, sometimes were genuinely > curious. Very precisely > Q. Who funds it? Who writes it? (a couple of times each) Never heard that one, though. > Q. How do you compare to database-X? > Mostly Oracle people showing an interest, then MySQL questions then > MS-SQL and finally one Progress user. Yes. > Q. Can we do Y like we do with X? > People interested in porting or looking to start a new project. Two > main areas seemed to stand out - XML and Java. Unfortunately, these > two areas are ones where Oliver and I weren't experts. I've been telling people that XML and Java support are in development. It seems to interest people at least. :) > Q. Copyright issues with Oracle pl/sql and plpgsql? > Q. How stable is it? How far can it scale? Never heard those really. > Q. Limitations/New features coming up? That's always a tough one. Just talk to them about what you know best. They won't check it anyway. The questions I've always heard are (in this order): 1. What's the difference to MySQL? 2. What GUI tools are available? 3. How does one realize high availability? 4. Where does one get support? 5. What does object-relational mean? Actually, what I did was I took a mental note about that at LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt last November and this March at "Chemnitzer Linux-Tag" I did my entire presentation about "PostgreSQL - Questions and Answers" answering those five questions. After that there was silence. :) Slides (in German) for that: http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/past-events/chemnitz2004-slides/index.html > 2. PgAdmin > Easier to show people things with a GUI. Some were quite surprised by > the sophistication of it. When you show them the whole array of pgAdmin, phpPgAdmin, TOra, maybe throw in the Visual Explain, everyone goes home satisfied. > 3. Oliver's slideshow > Less for any information people got from it, but it gave them > something to look at briefly before making eye contact, or something > to read if both of us were already talking. Yeah, I had thought of a slideshow for LinuxTag. Good idea. > 4. We were busy Good. :-) > Cons: > > 1. The stand looked empty and we didn't have any brochures. I can maybe help you with some posters and brochures for the future. The posters I have I kind of need myself and the brochures are bilingual, but I can at least send you the designs and you can arrange to have them printed. That's probably cheaper than shipping them anyway. The brochures are especially nice because when someone asks you about why PostgreSQL is better than MySQL you can point them to all the items listed on the flyer. Here are some pictures so you can see the posters in context (starting at about the 4th row): http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/past-events/lwe2003-pictures/ > 5. Six handouts covering each section in more detail - for > reproduction in better quality and to be handed out to those who take > an interest in that section. Good idea. > 7. Funding would be nice, but organisation is more important. We need > news items before and after the show. We need to know what shows are > happening. We need to make sure all printing is ready, and those > involved have brushed up on areas they don't know enough about. Most events are posted on the www.postgresql.org home page. There are some posted right now. > 8. We need an elephant. Yes, everyone raid the toy stores and find that elephant! Maybe some of the people from Britain want to come to LinuxTag in Germany in June. Here is the event announcement: http://www.postgresql.org/events/195.html
Peter, > I can maybe help you with some posters and brochures for the future. > The posters I have I kind of need myself and the brochures are > bilingual, but I can at least send you the designs and you can arrange > to have them printed. That's probably cheaper than shipping them > anyway. The brochures are especially nice because when someone asks > you about why PostgreSQL is better than MySQL you can point them to all > the items listed on the flyer. Also, once we can get the foundation off the ground, I'll work on funding for professional printing. We'll need to have 3-4 "caches" of materials; one in the US, one in Europe, and one in Australia (maybe India, too?) which can be shipped around within those regions. We did this for OpenOffice.org and it worked pretty well. Of course, with paid printing there's no way we can cover all 13+ EU languages. Suggestions on how to handle this? Prof. printed stuff in English, and photocopies in other languages? -- -Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
Hello, FYI, recall that CMD can do printing via OpenDocs. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake Josh Berkus wrote: > Peter, > > >>I can maybe help you with some posters and brochures for the future. >>The posters I have I kind of need myself and the brochures are >>bilingual, but I can at least send you the designs and you can arrange >>to have them printed. That's probably cheaper than shipping them >>anyway. The brochures are especially nice because when someone asks >>you about why PostgreSQL is better than MySQL you can point them to all >>the items listed on the flyer. > > > Also, once we can get the foundation off the ground, I'll work on funding for > professional printing. We'll need to have 3-4 "caches" of materials; one in > the US, one in Europe, and one in Australia (maybe India, too?) which can be > shipped around within those regions. We did this for OpenOffice.org and it > worked pretty well. > > Of course, with paid printing there's no way we can cover all 13+ EU > languages. Suggestions on how to handle this? Prof. printed stuff in > English, and photocopies in other languages? >
Josh Berkus wrote: > Peter, > > > I can maybe help you with some posters and brochures for the future. > > The posters I have I kind of need myself and the brochures are > > bilingual, but I can at least send you the designs and you can arrange > > to have them printed. That's probably cheaper than shipping them > > anyway. The brochures are especially nice because when someone asks > > you about why PostgreSQL is better than MySQL you can point them to all > > the items listed on the flyer. > > Also, once we can get the foundation off the ground, I'll work on funding for > professional printing. We'll need to have 3-4 "caches" of materials; one in > the US, one in Europe, and one in Australia (maybe India, too?) which can be > shipped around within those regions. We did this for OpenOffice.org and it > worked pretty well. > > Of course, with paid printing there's no way we can cover all 13+ EU > languages. Suggestions on how to handle this? Prof. printed stuff in > English, and photocopies in other languages? I would do an Oo document and just send them a check and have them print it locally. It is probably cheaper to do it that way, and you can update the Oo file for every release (you don't get stuck with stale printed brochures.) -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 22:03, Richard Huxton wrote: > This is a brief summary for people - Oliver is busy the next day/two and I'll > be out and about Friday, so I thought it might be sensible to get some notes > down. I'm still busy! and I'm going to Israel for a week, so here is only a brief addition to what Richard wrote. 1. I had several people come up to say thank you for PostgreSQL! I found that very encouraging and I want to pass the message on. 2. I had up to 10 people ask why they should choose Pg in preference to MySQL. My answer was: reliability, scalability, standards-compliance and no licensing issues. 3. Some people were, in effect, complaining that we weren't marketing Pg - "Why don't we see much in the press about PostgreSQL?" I pointed out that a wholly volunteer operation doesn't have a marketing budget. In this respect, Pg is in the same position as Debian. In either case, I think that we have to establish our position by technical excellence and not try to do things as the commercial competition does. However, additional publicity would certainly be welcome. 4. I had one problem question which I couldn't solve, though I'm fairly sure it should be possible: Can we create a function that can have privileges on an object that the person running the function does not have? The user wants to channel all updates through a validating function; therefore users should not have insert, update or delete privileges on the table, but they should be able to do inserts, updates and deletes through this function instead. Richard mentioned the rolling demo I had prepared. This is attached. It's quite extensive and Richard had suggested it ought to be trimmed or broken into shorter sections, but I never found the time to do that. My intention was to cover, briefly, all the aspects of Pg that are important to a prospective user. At the same time, I felt the need to educate people who don't really understand what a RDBMS is about. If people would like to contribute changes, I hope it will prove useful. It is in OpenOffice format. Oliver Elphick
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Oliver Elphick wrote: > On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 22:03, Richard Huxton wrote: > > This is a brief summary for people - Oliver is busy the next day/two and I'll > > be out and about Friday, so I thought it might be sensible to get some notes > > down. > > I'm still busy! and I'm going to Israel for a week, so here is only a > brief addition to what Richard wrote. > > 1. I had several people come up to say thank you for PostgreSQL! I > found that very encouraging and I want to pass the message on. > > 2. I had up to 10 people ask why they should choose Pg in preference to > MySQL. My answer was: reliability, scalability, standards-compliance > and no licensing issues. > > 3. Some people were, in effect, complaining that we weren't marketing Pg > - "Why don't we see much in the press about PostgreSQL?" I pointed out > that a wholly volunteer operation doesn't have a marketing budget. In > this respect, Pg is in the same position as Debian. In either case, I > think that we have to establish our position by technical excellence and > not try to do things as the commercial competition does. However, > additional publicity would certainly be welcome. I hope SRA will get involved in international marketing of PostgreSQL soon. -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 08:49:46 +0100, Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> wrote: > > 4. I had one problem question which I couldn't solve, though I'm fairly > sure it should be possible: Can we create a function that can have > privileges on an object that the person running the function does not > have? The user wants to channel all updates through a validating > function; therefore users should not have insert, update or delete > privileges on the table, but they should be able to do inserts, updates > and deletes through this function instead. You can create functions with 'SECURITY DEFINER' to access objects as the function creator instead of the function caller.