Thread: Who's a "Corporate Sponsor"?
Folks, We've been laying out a new "Corporate Sponsors" page on WWW for the new web site. However, some debatable issues have arisen on who "qualifies" to be on the page. We've agreed, there, on listing: 1) Any company that sponsors a PostgreSQL major contributor's time; 2) Any company that has contributed a feature or significant add-in since 2000; 3) Any company which pays for or donates infrastructure resources for the project. The issues that aren't clear are: 1) do all mirrors get listed? 2) does documentation "count" as much as code? 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? 4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS? Since scrolling space on our web page is not exactly a scarce resource, I'm inclined to say "yes, yes, yes and no". It benefits *us* to list as many companies as possible, because it shows how widely used and supported PostgreSQL is to potential new users. So we have little incentive to be "stingy" with listings; for the same reason, I wouldn't suggest "expiring" companies unless they go out of business. The reason for the last "no" is that vendors of commercial software, no matter how closely tied to PostgreSQL, are not "contributing"; they are at best complimenting Postgres for mutual benefit. It also removes some "incentive" for companies in the "PostgreSQL space" to OSS their software, which of course we want them to do. However, before you give an opinion, you should be aware that under that set of rules, Elein's company Varlena LLC would not be listed with "corporate sponsors", despite providing the quite valuable "General Bits". While very useful, 100% PG-oriented, and free, GB is "all rights reserved" and hosted entirely at Varlena.com. I'm bringing this up not to pick on Elein -- especially as GB could change its status at any time per Elein's post: http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/ -- but because this "borderline" situation is liable to arise again. We already had something exactly analogous with CommandPrompt's online publishing of Practical PostgreSQL; again, useful to the community and free, but externally hosted and not OSS. This issue would apply equally if, for example, EMS HiTech offered pgExporter under a free shareware license. It would be nice, useful, popular, but still not a "contribution". So, opinions? -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: > Folks, > > We've been laying out a new "Corporate Sponsors" page on WWW for the new web > site. However, some debatable issues have arisen on who "qualifies" to be on > the page. We've agreed, there, on listing: > > 1) Any company that sponsors a PostgreSQL major contributor's time; > 2) Any company that has contributed a feature or significant add-in since > 2000; > 3) Any company which pays for or donates infrastructure resources for the > project. > > The issues that aren't clear are: > 1) do all mirrors get listed? I think all active ones should be ... even if nobody uses that mirror, they are contributing signification resources on their server to just store everything ... > 2) does documentation "count" as much as code? Can we 'divide up' the page into area of contribution? Code, for instance, would be at the top of the list, since, IMHO, that is the *significant* contribution ... I'd almost put documentation just after Code, in importance, since I do remember way back when when our docs royally sucked, but nobody wanted to work on that since "where is the prestige?" > 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be included, IMHO ... > 4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS? Definitely not ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> The issues that aren't clear are:
> 1) do all mirrors get listed?
I would say not as corporate sponsors possibly something else?
> 2) does documentation "count" as much as code?
More so.
> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted?
Yes.
> 4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS?
Hmmm... no.
> "stingy" with listings; for the same reason, I wouldn't suggest "expiring"
> companies unless they go out of business.
I think personally that there should be an expiration date to some
level. What if they up and decide they want to be a MySQL shop and stop
supporting PostgreSQL?...
> However, before you give an opinion, you should be aware that under that set
> of rules, Elein's company Varlena LLC would not be listed with "corporate
> sponsors", despite providing the quite valuable "General Bits". While very
> useful, 100% PG-oriented, and free, GB is "all rights reserved" and hosted
> entirely at Varlena.com.
So the question is what would it take to get Elein's company listed?
Based on the above I see:
She just has to Open Source general bits? I would be o.k. with that.
> So, opinions?
One of the reasons I believe it is very important to support externally
hosted projects/sites is that in reality, the PostgreSQL infrastructure
doesn't support the needs of many projects.
I don't think we should punish projects because their primary
development platform is Linux instead of FreeBSD or EGAD Windows.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
Command Prompt, Inc., home of PostgreSQL Replication, and plPHP.
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
+1-503-667-4564 - jd@commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com
Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL
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Marc, > Can we 'divide up' the page into area of contribution? Code, for > instance, would be at the top of the list, since, IMHO, that is the > *significant* contribution ... I'd almost put documentation just after > Code, in importance, since I do remember way back when when our docs > royally sucked, but nobody wanted to work on that since "where is the > prestige?" That brings up something I didn't want to get into, which is "amount" and "type" of contribution. It's tempting to divide stuff up by category, but there's two major problems with it: 1) We have inadequate volunteers to keep listings up to date as it is. Keeping contributions by category up to date would require even more work. 2) Already, we're just discussing a *general* corp contributors page and already we have a debate over one company. It'll be much, much worse if we have to argue about who's a "documentation contributor" vs. who's a "code contributor". > > 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > > I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be > included, IMHO ... So the developers of phpPgAdmin don't count? And JDBC? And Slony? and PostGIS? and eRServer? Do I make my point here? How does is benefit PostgreSQL to exclude so many? Given that over the next few years we can expect to put an increasing amount of code into "add-ins" and less and less code into the core, I think not listing optional add-in contributors would be very short-sighted. *especially* since it's Core, NOT the contributors, who gets to decide what's in the main code and what's not. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > > > I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be > included, IMHO ... And why not?? Is pgFoundry not -- http://projects.postgresql.org ? > >> 4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS? > > > Definitely not ... > > ---- > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) > Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of PostgreSQL Replication, and plPHP. Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - jd@commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL
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Josh Berkus wrote: > The issues that aren't clear are: > 1) do all mirrors get listed? No. Rationale: In most cases, mirroring PostgreSQL creates zero marginal effort for the hoster. And many mirrors aren't even "corporate". > 2) does documentation "count" as much as code? Yes. > 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? No. Sponsoring PostgreSQL means that the results of the effort become part of PostgreSQL (the code, the documentation, the web site, the advocacy effort, etc.). Merely producing software that works with PostgreSQL does not "sponsor" PostgreSQL. I would be very careful about the hosting argument. Before you know it, everyone who dumps some code on pgFoundry wants to be a sponsor because his code is internally hosted. We really need a selection process of recognized PostgreSQL software. Then we might even include externally hosted software. > Since scrolling space on our web page is not exactly a scarce > resource, I'm inclined to say "yes, yes, yes and no". It benefits > *us* to list as many companies as possible, because it shows how > widely used and supported PostgreSQL is to potential new users. Then we should simply list everyone and be done with it. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
>>3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > > > No. Sponsoring PostgreSQL means that the results of the effort become > part of PostgreSQL (the code, the documentation, the web site, the > advocacy effort, etc.). Merely producing software that works with > PostgreSQL does not "sponsor" PostgreSQL. I go back to my http://projects.postgresql.org argument. Your argument suggests that we do not list JDBC or .Net... Without the drivers PostgreSQL would be pretty useless. > I would be very careful about the hosting argument. Before you know it, > everyone who dumps some code on pgFoundry wants to be a sponsor because > his code is internally hosted. We really need a selection process of > recognized PostgreSQL software. Well.... all projects on pgFoundry are approved. It is not automatic. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake Then we might even include externally > hosted software. > > >>Since scrolling space on our web page is not exactly a scarce >>resource, I'm inclined to say "yes, yes, yes and no". It benefits >>*us* to list as many companies as possible, because it shows how >>widely used and supported PostgreSQL is to potential new users. > > > Then we should simply list everyone and be done with it. > -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of PostgreSQL Replication, and plPHP. Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - jd@commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL
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On December 3, 2004 02:15 pm, Josh Berkus wrote: > So the developers of phpPgAdmin don't count? And JDBC? And Slony? and > PostGIS? and eRServer? Do I make my point here? How does is benefit > PostgreSQL to exclude so many? > > Given that over the next few years we can expect to put an increasing > amount of code into "add-ins" and less and less code into the core, I think > not listing optional add-in contributors would be very short-sighted. > *especially* since it's Core, NOT the contributors, who gets to decide > what's in the main code and what's not. Maybe we should acknowledge corporate contribution period. The challenge is to arrive at a standard that everyone can agree.
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: >> I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be >> included, IMHO ... > > So the developers of phpPgAdmin don't count? And JDBC? And Slony? and > PostGIS? and eRServer? Do I make my point here? How does is benefit > PostgreSQL to exclude so many? This, IMHO, goes back to your point about sub-categories on the general page ... if we have 1000 projects on pgfoundry, do we list them *all*? Or do we then sort through and decide which ones are bigger/more important? :( ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? >> >> >> I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be >> included, IMHO ... > > And why not?? Is pgFoundry not -- http://projects.postgresql.org ? The question comes back to who is going to sit down and choose which project should be listed, and which project shouldn't be listed ... :( Right now, the list is fairly small, but one would hope it will grow, and with growth means more time having to be spent maintaining a 'list' :( ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? >> >> >> No. Sponsoring PostgreSQL means that the results of the effort become part >> of PostgreSQL (the code, the documentation, the web site, the advocacy >> effort, etc.). Merely producing software that works with PostgreSQL does >> not "sponsor" PostgreSQL. > > I go back to my http://projects.postgresql.org argument. > > Your argument suggests that we do not list JDBC or .Net... Without > the drivers PostgreSQL would be pretty useless. And what would you like for JDBC? Every company that has someone involved in maintaining it? I know Dave Cramer is a big one, but there are others involved in JDBC as well, who are most likely doing it for 'corporate reasons' and on 'corporate time' ... Basically, we aren't looking at listing 'software packages', I didn't think, we are looking at listing 'corporate sponsorship' ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Hi, I think that basically all work should be equal. So if someone sponsors the www-development, that should be as valuable as sponsoring a feature. Since I guess we want to have the www-pages too? Then it is just a matter of how much time should be enough to be listed. Regarding projects that are "outside" I think we could just refer to those projects as sponsors. Then those projects could themselves decide, who contributes to them or not. This way postgresql project does not need to follow, who is contributing to Slony, but Slony would do that. Maybe not so much visibility for those companies, but still something. Of course, one way would be to tell the other projects to maintain a page, that would be included on the postgresql page. But that again can be quite hard to maintain. Or maybe even something stored into a database ;-) No matter what page, it should surely be updated. If it is not updated, it should not be done at all. Just think that for example Fujitsu would announce that they are going to reduce costs, and leave the project, and it would still be displayed somewhere. Surely nobody would be happy about it. Rgs, Jussi
On 12/3/2004 1:57 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: > >> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > > I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be > included, IMHO ... Can we move Slony into contrib, please? Just kidding, I don't want it there for several reasons. But do you really say that it isn't a major contribution? Jan -- #======================================================================# # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. # # Let's break this rule - forgive me. # #================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #
Folks, First, change the subject line because I realized that I was mixing things up; we're talking about "Contributors", "Sponsors" is something for another day. Marc, > And what would you like for JDBC? Every company that has someone involved > in maintaining it? I know Dave Cramer is a big one, but there are others > involved in JDBC as well, who are most likely doing it for 'corporate > reasons' and on 'corporate time' ... Lord almighty, we're not talking about giving people money. Or front-page banner ads. We're talking about a "corporate contributor" listing page. Why do you think that being listed on our web site is such a valuable commodity that we need to ration it out like drawn blood? As I pointed out, it benefits *us* to have more companies listed. Even up to 1000 companies. In fact, if we *had* 1000 companies to list, the Advocacy volunteers could all take a vacation because our work would be done. I doubt Linux could list 1000 companies. So if Dave C. wants PostgreSQL International to be listed for his contributions to JDBC, then why not? Where's the harm? An extra 1/2cm of scrolling? In order to list companies, they have to contribute something, and they have to want to be listed. I'd be surprised if we end up with more than 30 even under the most liberal policy. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> And what would you like for JDBC? Every company that has someone > involved in maintaining it? I know Dave Cramer is a big one, but there > are others involved in JDBC as well, who are most likely doing it for > 'corporate reasons' and on 'corporate time' ... > > Basically, we aren't looking at listing 'software packages', I didn't > think, we are looking at listing 'corporate sponsorship' ... Good point. > > > ---- > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) > Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of PostgreSQL Replication, and plPHP. Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - jd@commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL
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On Fri, 2004-12-03 at 14:30, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > > > >>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > >> > >> > >> No. Sponsoring PostgreSQL means that the results of the effort become part > >> of PostgreSQL (the code, the documentation, the web site, the advocacy > >> effort, etc.). Merely producing software that works with PostgreSQL does > >> not "sponsor" PostgreSQL. > > > > I go back to my http://projects.postgresql.org argument. > > > > Your argument suggests that we do not list JDBC or .Net... Without > > the drivers PostgreSQL would be pretty useless. > > And what would you like for JDBC? Every company that has someone involved > in maintaining it? I know Dave Cramer is a big one, but there are others > involved in JDBC as well, who are most likely doing it for 'corporate > reasons' and on 'corporate time' ... > If you take my role in phppgadmin, which is that of general project administration, maintaining the demo server, and the occasional patch, would that be enough to get my company listed as a corporate sponsor of postgresql if that was all I did with regards to OSS PostgreSQL? I would have to think no, otherwise we are opening a huge pandoras box with the number of projects and developers that may be contributing... ie. corporate sponsorship almost becomes meaningless when anyone can get it. Robert Treat -- Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Jan Wieck wrote: > On 12/3/2004 1:57 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > >> On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: >> >>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? >> >> I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be >> included, IMHO ... > > Can we move Slony into contrib, please? > > Just kidding, I don't want it there for several reasons. But do you really > say that it isn't a major contribution? It is, but "Slony" isn't a business entity, so how can it be a corporate sponsor? :) this is, in fact, what we are discussing ... "corporate sponsors" ... And, like JDBC ... who do we list? Affilias started it, but I believe that DarcyB is doing alot of work on it now, as is David Fetter ... so there are three 'corporate sponsors' there ... and that is only those that I can think of off the top of my head ... Software is an 'icky' ground because of this :( ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > > The issues that aren't clear are: > > 1) do all mirrors get listed? > I would say not as corporate sponsors possibly something else? > > > 2) does documentation "count" as much as code? > More so. > > > 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > Yes. > > > 4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS? > Hmmm... no. > > > "stingy" with listings; for the same reason, I wouldn't suggest "expiring" > > companies unless they go out of business. > > I think personally that there should be an expiration date to some > level. What if they up and decide they want to be a MySQL shop and stop > supporting PostgreSQL?... FYI, PeerDirect would be listed for Win32 code contributions. -- 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
Josh Berkus wrote: >Folks, > >We've been laying out a new "Corporate Sponsors" page on WWW for the new web >site. However, some debatable issues have arisen on who "qualifies" to be on >the page. We've agreed, there, on listing: > >1) Any company that sponsors a PostgreSQL major contributor's time; >2) Any company that has contributed a feature or significant add-in since >2000; >3) Any company which pays for or donates infrastructure resources for the >project. > > > Fair enough. Lets expand these to the questions below. >The issues that aren't clear are: >1) do all mirrors get listed? > > I think so. Why not? They are contributing. >2) does documentation "count" as much as code? > > Absolutely. >3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? > > Marc and others have made compelling arguments against this. However, I think that we can address these arguments without preventing add-ins from being listed. See below. >4) If yes to (3), do they still count if they are not OSS? > > Definitely not. It seems to me that we need clear guidelines for the inclusion of add-ins. I would suggest: 1) The add-in must provide database access, development, or administration functionality, or otherwise extend the backend (for example, by offering a replication solution). This would allow for inclusion companies sponsoring PL's, replication systems, admin tools, database drivers, object types, etc. 2) It must be open source or for documentation be open content. We can now debate whether allowing commercial distribution should be a requirement of listing ;-) We may want to list a number of approved licenses. (For example, I don't think that if something is licensed under terms similar to Qmail it should count either, but that is another story.) 3) The project must list their core developers. 4) Only companies sponsoring the core developers can be listed. The idea here is to require a substantial contribution, not just a "One of our employees submitted a patch to PgAdmin III last year and it was accepted." 5) The project may be required to list a minimum number of user testimonials with verifiable contact information. This is designed to limit the "We contributed a set of 5-dimensional geometric objects that nobody uses, but we should still be listed." >Since scrolling space on our web page is not exactly a scarce resource, I'm >inclined to say "yes, yes, yes and no". It benefits *us* to list as many >companies as possible, because it shows how widely used and supported >PostgreSQL is to potential new users. So we have little incentive to be >"stingy" with listings; for the same reason, I wouldn't suggest "expiring" >companies unless they go out of business. > > > Might be a good idea to require companies to reapply from time to time, though. It may help to give additional incentive to contribute. The advocacy group could then from time to time nominate a "top 20" contributors list. It might give some companies an economic boost if they can use that in their marketing. >The reason for the last "no" is that vendors of commercial software, no matter >how closely tied to PostgreSQL, are not "contributing"; they are at best >complimenting Postgres for mutual benefit. It also removes some "incentive" >for companies in the "PostgreSQL space" to OSS their software, which of >course we want them to do. > > >However, before you give an opinion, you should be aware that under that set >of rules, Elein's company Varlena LLC would not be listed with "corporate >sponsors", despite providing the quite valuable "General Bits". While very >useful, 100% PG-oriented, and free, GB is "all rights reserved" and hosted >entirely at Varlena.com. > >I'm bringing this up not to pick on Elein -- especially as GB could change its >status at any time per Elein's post: http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/ -- >but because this "borderline" situation is liable to arise again. We >already had something exactly analogous with CommandPrompt's online >publishing of Practical PostgreSQL; again, useful to the community and free, >but externally hosted and not OSS. This issue would apply equally if, for >example, EMS HiTech offered pgExporter under a free shareware license. It >would be nice, useful, popular, but still not a "contribution". > >So, opinions? > > > Again, I think that this example is exactly the reason why we need a set of clear policies, such as the development of a list of accepted licenses for both software and documentation contributions. This avoids disappointment and hard feelings :-) Best Wishes, Chris Travers Metatron Technology Consulting
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On 12/3/2004 3:08 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Jan Wieck wrote: > >> On 12/3/2004 1:57 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote: >> >>> On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: >>> >>>> 3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted? >>> >>> I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be >>> included, IMHO ... >> >> Can we move Slony into contrib, please? >> >> Just kidding, I don't want it there for several reasons. But do you really >> say that it isn't a major contribution? > > It is, but "Slony" isn't a business entity, so how can it be a corporate > sponsor? :) this is, in fact, what we are discussing ... "corporate > sponsors" ... Slony is a project originally sponsored by Afilias, developed and released under the BSD license, managed on gborg. So Slony is the contribution and Afilias the business entity. > > And, like JDBC ... who do we list? Affilias started it, but I believe > that DarcyB is doing alot of work on it now, as is David Fetter ... so > there are three 'corporate sponsors' there ... and that is only those that > I can think of off the top of my head ... > > Software is an 'icky' ground because of this :( It is indeed. We both have the advantage of being involved with companies that undoubtedly are corporate sponsors. Especially because of that we two also should not raise the bar for it too high. Could be interpreted as self-serving. Jan -- #======================================================================# # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. # # Let's break this rule - forgive me. # #================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #
On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 02:57:38PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> >3) do add-ins count if they are completely externally hosted?
>
> I don't think so ... even stuff hosted on pgfoundry shouldn't really be
> included, IMHO ...
That position strikes me as self-defeating. We've been aggressively
pushing things out of the main tree and onto gborg/pgfoundry on the
grounds that they're not "core" things, even though they make the
system complete (analogous to the GNU part of GNU/Linux, if you
believe in that little bit of flamebait). If we now say, "Since it's
not really part of the core, we won't acknowledge it," we concede the
very point that MySQL fanboys, Ellison partisans, &c. are always
saying: PostgreSQL doesn't _really_ have replication, because it's
some unassociated add-on; PostgreSQL doesn't _really_ have R or Perl
or Java support, because it's an external, unassociated add-on.
Indeed, such people will say that PostgreSQL isn't really a database
_system_, but just a kernel. They'll be right.
I'm with Josh: we have plenty of scroll space, and I think we want to
make this tent as big as possible. In fact, I'm even inclined to
include closed software as a kind of contribution, although as a
lesser one. By way of analogy, I think it makes a very big
contribution to Linux that Oracle will run on it; it's not the same
thing as paying for Alan Cox, but it's still a significant
participation in the community of users.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The plural of anecdote is not data.
--Roger Brinner
Andrew Sullivan wrote: > I'm with Josh: we have plenty of scroll space, and I think we want to > make this tent as big as possible. In fact, I'm even inclined to > include closed software as a kind of contribution, although as a > lesser one. By way of analogy, I think it makes a very big > contribution to Linux that Oracle will run on it; it's not the same > thing as paying for Alan Cox, but it's still a significant > participation in the community of users. I have to agree. Had it not been for Oracle running on Linux, I'd have had a *much* harder time getting it into our datacenter in the first place. Now that it is there and proven, adding new Linux apps (as compared to proprietary Unix or Windows) is easy to justify internally. This past year while preparing for our first foray into data warehousing, I found the lack of native support (compared to ODBC) for Postgres in the commercial tools (e.g. ETL, BI reporting and analysis, etc) a deal killer when it came to using Postgres as our data warehouse. No one but me was willing to try to make it work, and instead we opted for a commercial database. The bottom line is that for PostgreSQL to truly flourish in the world of corporate datacenters, there needs to be a large body of supporting and supported applications, both open source and commercial. We should welcome all of them, because they serve our purpose as much as we serve theirs. Joe
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Joe Conway wrote: > Andrew Sullivan wrote: >> I'm with Josh: we have plenty of scroll space, and I think we want to >> make this tent as big as possible. In fact, I'm even inclined to >> include closed software as a kind of contribution, although as a >> lesser one. By way of analogy, I think it makes a very big >> contribution to Linux that Oracle will run on it; it's not the same >> thing as paying for Alan Cox, but it's still a significant >> participation in the community of users. > > I have to agree. Had it not been for Oracle running on Linux, I'd have had a > *much* harder time getting it into our datacenter in the first place. Now > that it is there and proven, adding new Linux apps (as compared to > proprietary Unix or Windows) is easy to justify internally. > > This past year while preparing for our first foray into data warehousing, I > found the lack of native support (compared to ODBC) for Postgres in the > commercial tools (e.g. ETL, BI reporting and analysis, etc) a deal killer > when it came to using Postgres as our data warehouse. No one but me was > willing to try to make it work, and instead we opted for a commercial > database. > > The bottom line is that for PostgreSQL to truly flourish in the world of > corporate datacenters, there needs to be a large body of supporting and > supported applications, both open source and commercial. We should welcome > all of them, because they serve our purpose as much as we serve theirs. Both you and Andrew are arguing software ... this discussion is about project sponsors / contributions ... or, at least, started as such ... ------ Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 09:29:49PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> Both you and Andrew are arguing software ... this discussion is about
> project sponsors / contributions ... or, at least, started as such .
Well, specific contributions to the project (imagine, for instance,
native Cognos support) which are hosted elsewhere, and are closed
software, but which involve (for example) significant advocacy work
on the part of the supporting organisation, still seem to be a case
covered by Josh's original question. If Oracle did a "Power of
Linux" advert, I think it'd still be a contribution to Linux, no?
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
--Philip Greenspun
Greetings, I need to provide data for a compuer illiterate CFO to stand an argument with Oracle zealots on whether new ERP system should be based on Oracle or PostgreSQL. CFO looks extremely favorably towards PostgreSQL but asks for some real-life examples of using PostgreSQL in finantial applications. Shannon Medical Center, Mohawk Software, Vanten Inc. and BASF case studies provided on Advocacy web page do not quite qualify. Are there some other examples? Thnaks in advance, Nicolai Tufar
On December 7, 2004 06:58 am, Nicolai Tufar wrote: > Greetings, > > I need to provide data for a compuer illiterate CFO to > stand an argument with Oracle zealots on whether new > ERP system should be based on Oracle or PostgreSQL. > CFO looks extremely favorably towards PostgreSQL but > asks for some real-life examples of using PostgreSQL in > finantial applications. Shannon Medical Center, > Mohawk Software, Vanten Inc. and BASF case studies > provided on Advocacy web page do not quite qualify. > Are there some other examples? The following postgresql news item may be of value to you: http://www.postgresql.org/news/231.html > > Thnaks in advance, > Nicolai Tufar > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster -- Darcy Buskermolen Wavefire Technologies Corp. ph: 250.717.0200 fx: 250.763.1759 http://www.wavefire.com
On 07/12/2004 14:58 Nicolai Tufar wrote: > Greetings, > > I need to provide data for a compuer illiterate CFO to > stand an argument with Oracle zealots on whether new > ERP system should be based on Oracle or PostgreSQL. > CFO looks extremely favorably towards PostgreSQL but > asks for some real-life examples of using PostgreSQL in > finantial applications. Shannon Medical Center, > Mohawk Software, Vanten Inc. and BASF case studies > provided on Advocacy web page do not quite qualify. > Are there some other examples? There's SQL-Ledger. That uses either Oracle or Postgresql as the back-end. HTH -- Paul Thomas +------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Thomas Micro Systems Limited | Software Solutions for Business | | Computer Consultants | http://www.thomas-micro-systems-ltd.co.uk | +------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
At Just Sports we use PostgreSQL as our backend for our retail operation including point-of-sale. To date we've taken in over $100M in sales without issue. If you would like more information, don't hesitate to ask. Gavin Nicolai Tufar wrote: >Greetings, > >I need to provide data for a compuer illiterate CFO to >stand an argument with Oracle zealots on whether new >ERP system should be based on Oracle or PostgreSQL. >CFO looks extremely favorably towards PostgreSQL but >asks for some real-life examples of using PostgreSQL in >finantial applications. Shannon Medical Center, >Mohawk Software, Vanten Inc. and BASF case studies >provided on Advocacy web page do not quite qualify. >Are there some other examples? > >Thnaks in advance, >Nicolai Tufar > >---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- >TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster > >
<http://sql-ledger.org> It's well and good; I have pointed a number of people to it, and use it myself for "small scale corporate accounting." But while there are doubtless numerous such small installations, I'd expect an "enterprise reference" to involve an organization with at least tens of millions of dollars of sales, if not hundreds of millions. (Dollars, pounds, euros, I wou -- (format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "gmail.com") http://linuxfinances.info/info/x.html I was just wondering if the Chinese are busy trying to deal with the "Year Of The Dragon" bug.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, paul@tmsl.demon.co.uk (Paul Thomas) wrote: > There's SQL-Ledger. That uses either Oracle or Postgresql as the back-end. <http://sql-ledger.org> It's well and good; I have pointed a number of people to it, and use it myself for "small scale corporate accounting." But while there are doubtless numerous such small installations, I'd expect an "enterprise reference" to involve an organization with at least tens of millions of dollars of sales, if not hundreds of millions. (Dollars, pounds, euros, I wouldn't too much care...) At some levels, it can doubtless handle such large numbers, but I just don't think anyone's using it at quite the "enterprise" level. -- (format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "gmail.com") http://linuxfinances.info/info/postgresql.html I was just wondering if the Chinese are busy trying to deal with the "Year Of The Dragon" bug.
<http://sql-ledger.org> It's well and good; I have pointed a number of people to it, and use it myself for "small scale corporate accounting." But while there are doubtless numerous such small installations, I'd expect an "enterprise reference" to involve an organization with at least tens of millions of dollars of sales, if not hundreds of millions. (Dollars, pounds, euros, I wouldn't too much care...) At some levels, it can doubtless handle such large numbers, but I just don't think anyone's using it at quite the "enterprise" level. -- (format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "gmail.com") http://linuxfinances.info/info/postgresql.html I was just wondering if the Chinese are busy trying to deal with the "Year Of The Dragon" bug.