Thread: EnterpriseDB - what happens to pgsql?
Just wondering what the general concencus is about enterpriseDB from the pgsql community? good or bad? I'm not 100% up to speed, with opensource development - but they seem to have a policy to contribute improvements back to pgsql. This sounds (to me) like a good thing for the pgsql development, and a good opensource philosophy but: Is there a danger that users new to databases, will skip pgsql alltogether and use edb's free version or have i missed something obvious here? again, appolligies if i'm showing a lack of knowledge about opensource here?
On Thu, Aug 11, 2005 at 05:23:36PM +0100, Robert Cleary wrote:
> Just wondering what the general concencus is about enterpriseDB from the
> pgsql community? good or bad?
I don't know what the consensus is -- I am not a WG chair, and this
is not the IETF -- but my own opinion is that more users can't be
bad, no matter how they come to use the system.
It seems to me that part of the point of the BSD license is precisely
that it encourages people to use the code, no matter what the model
for use is.
The EnterpriseDB folks said to me, at least, while at OSCON that they
intend to contribute back general-purpose stuff. Their Oracle
compatibility layer is not part of that, I think. For my part, I
don't think that the point of PostgreSQL is to provide a free Oracle
anyway; the name of the software isn't PNO, after all.
As for the risks inherent in such an actor in the community, well, as
near as I can tell, the people who try to fork-and-close
community-derived software quickly find themselves outpaced by the
community software. So if that _were_ their strategy (and for the
record, I don't think it is), what good would it do them?
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
--George Orwell
My few cents are as follows:
- EnterpriseDB is certainly trying our best to be good Postgres community citizens.
- The Postgres community is incredibly rich and diverse. It's getting ever stronger and momentum is gaining for the worlds most advanced open source database. We're proud to be a part of this massive collaborative effort that is bigger than any individual, company, country, or continent.
- I don't think it's wise to ponder the community moving in a "MySQL" direction where one company controls the community. This is certainly NOT EDB's intention (and we always stress it to anyone who suggests otherwise).
- There are many, many, many people and companies who are NOT attracted to Oracle compatibility features and are going to always download and use the core version of Postgres. This is the beauty of the ever friendly & flexible BSD license.
- We are trying to provide an increasing amount of functionality that helps free Oracle (and other proprietary DB vendors) customers from vendor lock-in and exhorbitant pricing. Can this be a bad thing??
--Denis Lussier
Chief Architect and Chairman
From: pgsql-advocacy-owner@postgresql.org on behalf of Robert Cleary
Sent: Thu 8/11/2005 12:23 PM
To: pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org
Subject: [pgsql-advocacy] EnterpriseDB - what happens to pgsql?
Just wondering what the general concencus is about enterpriseDB from the
pgsql community? good or bad?
I'm not 100% up to speed, with opensource development - but they seem to
have a policy to contribute improvements
back to pgsql. This sounds (to me) like a good thing for the pgsql
development, and a good opensource philosophy but:
Is there a danger that users new to databases, will skip pgsql
alltogether and use edb's free version
or have i missed something obvious here?
again, appolligies if i'm showing a lack of knowledge about opensource here?
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On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:41:01 -0400
"Denis Lussier" <denis@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
> - The Postgres community is incredibly rich and diverse. It's getting
> ever stronger and momentum is gaining for the worlds most advanced
> open source database. We're proud to be a part of this massive
> collaborative effort that is bigger than any individual, company,
> country, or continent.
PostgreSQL has a good community, we only need to spread the "most
advanced database" part a little bit so that more people will know and
take care. It does not help to have a good product/software, people have
to use it to make it successful.
> - We are trying to provide an increasing amount of functionality that
> helps free Oracle (and other proprietary DB vendors) customers from
> vendor lock-in and exhorbitant pricing. Can this be a bad thing??
Since this is, what PostgreSQL is also doing (increasing functionality):
no, this could not be a bad thing at all.
Kind regards
--
Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product.
(Ferenc Mantfeld)
Robert, > Just wondering what the general concencus is about enterpriseDB from the > pgsql community? good or bad? Good. (my perspective) > Is there a danger that users new to databases, will skip pgsql > alltogether and use edb's free version > or have i missed something obvious here? Well, I (and other SFPUG community members) just finished 3 days of promoting OSS PostgreSQL from a "pod" in the EnterpriseDB pavillion at Linux World Expo. (more about that later) We were distributing "dual" CDs, with PostgreSQL/PGAdminIII and EnterpriseDB/eDBStudio on them. eDB fills a nice niche, for people who are looking to migrate to a more cost-effective alternative to Oracle, but still want corporate support, licenses, glossy marketing materials, etc. For folks who want an OSS database that they can hack and re-distribute with their own stuff, they'll still use "regular" PostgreSQL. Also, don't forget that eDB is just the latest in our family of companies. We've quite a few companies who have carved out "niches" reselling PostgreSQL to particular markets, just as the various Linux resellers serve their own markets: Fujitsu, SRA, Pervasive, Command Prompt, GreenPlum, and even at one time Red Hat. And as much as people keep saying that Red Hat is going to become the Linux monopoly, I've not seen any sign of it happening yet. So I'm not worried. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> As for the risks inherent in such an actor in the community, well, as
> near as I can tell, the people who try to fork-and-close
> community-derived software quickly find themselves outpaced by the
> community software. So if that _were_ their strategy (and for the
> record, I don't think it is), what good would it do them?
> near as I can tell, the people who try to fork-and-close
> community-derived software quickly find themselves outpaced by the
> community software. So if that _were_ their strategy (and for the
> record, I don't think it is), what good would it do them?
Hi Andrew, it was nice meeting you at OSCON. As you kindly imply, EnterpriseDB is definitely NOT trying to fork and outrun Postgres. We are contributing directly (and immediately) to the community for some stuff (such as Alvaro's work & Coverity & more to come) and we are doing our own set of modular changes (that are not BSD open source on day 1) for things like Oracle compatibility features for things that are already handled the ANSI-ISO way by core PG.
EDB has a large number of developers and we spend a decent portion of our engineering effort keeping up with the continual torrent of great fixes and improvements that comes from the community. The GA version of our product is current up through 8.0.3 and the Alpha version of our next generation product is going to be built on 8.1 as soon as Beta 1 goes out.
--Denis Lussier
Chief Architect & Chairman
Am Donnerstag, 11. August 2005 18:23 schrieb Robert Cleary: > Is there a danger that users new to databases, will skip pgsql > alltogether and use edb's free version > or have i missed something obvious here? > again, appolligies if i'm showing a lack of knowledge about opensource > here? If you are looking to move to an open source database system and you install EnterpriseDB then you have done something wrong because that product is neither open source, nor compatible to anything open source, nor supported by an open source community. Of course that doesn't mean that there are no reasons to use EnterpriseDB but I can't see them affecting the adoption of PostgreSQL proper in a negative way. (I can see them affecting the adoption in a positive way, so yay...)