Thread: On what we want to support: travel?

Colleagues,

Some recent discussion among the fund group[1] have included a number
of arguments that how community funds are spent require something
like community consensus about spending priorities.  Josh Drake has
just posted a fundraising appeal.  I support his appeal; but I think
that we need to have some discussion about how the community wants
to spend money raised in its name.  Hence this note.

Particularly pressing, in my view, is an open request to disburse
funds for travel.  I think it would be singularly inappropriate to
discuss the merits of individual requests here, on a list with a
public archive[2].  But I do think it is correct to open the question
of whether the community likes, in general, the idea of paying the
air fare, accommodation, meeting fees, &c. for community
representatives to speak in various locations around the world.

I think the following two questions need answers:

1.    Do we think it is a good idea, in general, to fund
individuals' travel, assuming such individuals are fairly prominent
members of the community?

2.    If the answer to (1) is "yes", what weight do such cases
carry compared to other possible expenditures, such as paying coders
for features; paying for hardware or network service; paying for
community presence at exhibitions (e.g. getting a "commercial" booth
at a trade fair); paying for marketing such as advertisements,
conference "swag", release CDs, and the like; paying for tools for
individual (or groups of) developers, such as real copies of the SQL
standard; or even paying for entry to the "industry" groups or
standards like TPC, ANSI, &c.?  The list is not exhaustive; make up
your own case.

It is critical, in this discussion, to understand that votes can't be
taken here on specific cases.  In fact, the entire authority for
disbursement currently rests with one person -- one whose authority
can be rescinded by the PGFG at any time, but who nevertheless has
complete control over financial decisions until that time.  This is
on purpose, because we were attempting to make the process as
lightweight as possible in order to ensure quick decisions could be
made for relatively trivial cases.  We are relying on the traditional
good faith of the community participants, plus the observant eye of
the wider community, to avoid abuses.[3]

With all of that said, I eagerly solicit your views.

Best,
A

[1] Owing to what might be a lacuna in the PGFG charter, it appears
unwise to call it by its "official" name, which is "fundraising
group".

[2] You are welcome to disagree with this assertion, but I ask you to
start another thread if you want to.

[3] This arrangement is not, in my opinion, controversial; in fact, I
think it's a good idea.  But if you think otherwise, please see note
[2].

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism.
                --Brad Holland

Andrew,

> 1.      Do we think it is a good idea, in general, to fund
> individuals' travel, assuming such individuals are fairly prominent
> members of the community?

Yes.   Currently, the only people capable of speaking for PostgreSQL who
also have jobs that pay them to do public speaking frequently are me,
Bruce, and Gavin (plus others in Japan).  There are more than 100 open
source conferences a year; we can't possibly cover them all with the three
of us.

Travel sponsorships allow other members of our community to promote and
educate about PostgreSQL in many, many more places.  I know that if we'd
had travel money available in 2003, I would have gone to conferences in
Brazil and Indonesia to promote PostgreSQL -- that was a big part of the
reason why Robert Treat and Greg Mullaine started to put together a
non-profit in the first place.

> 2.      If the answer to (1) is "yes", what weight do such cases
> carry compared to other possible expenditures, such as paying coders
> for features; paying for hardware or network service; paying for
> community presence at exhibitions (e.g. getting a "commercial" booth
> at a trade fair); paying for marketing such as advertisements,
> conference "swag", release CDs, and the like; paying for tools for
> individual (or groups of) developers, such as real copies of the SQL
> standard; or even paying for entry to the "industry" groups or
> standards like TPC, ANSI, &c.?  The list is not exhaustive; make up
> your own case.

Personally, I think it's co-equal with the things above categorically,
*except* for paying for a commercial booth at a conference, which I feel
should be our lowest priority if we have cash just lying around.  It's the
most expensive item, with the lowest benefit to the community.

So, I think our spending priorities should be:

1) PostgreSQL online infrastructure
2) Everything else including travel
3) Commercial booths.

Determining the priorities within (2) should be based on the individual
opportunity.  i.e. how much does it cost, and what does the community get
out of it?  And how much money do we have?

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Andrew,
>
>> 1.      Do we think it is a good idea, in general, to fund
>> individuals' travel, assuming such individuals are fairly prominent
>> members of the community?
>
> Yes.   Currently, the only people capable of speaking for PostgreSQL who
> also have jobs that pay them to do public speaking frequently are me,
> Bruce, and Gavin (plus others in Japan).  There are more than 100 open
> source conferences a year; we can't possibly cover them all with the three
> of us.\

I can also speak but it does effect me financially but as many know I
don't like to travel much. Anywhere in North America is no sweat.

>
> Travel sponsorships allow other members of our community to promote and
> educate about PostgreSQL in many, many more places.  I know that if we'd
> had travel money available in 2003, I would have gone to conferences in
> Brazil and Indonesia to promote PostgreSQL -- that was a big part of the
> reason why Robert Treat and Greg Mullaine started to put together a
> non-profit in the first place.

Right.

>
>> 2.      If the answer to (1) is "yes", what weight do such cases
>> carry compared to other possible expenditures, such as paying coders
>> for features; paying for hardware or network service; paying for
>> community presence at exhibitions (e.g. getting a "commercial" booth
>> at a trade fair); paying for marketing such as advertisements,
>> conference "swag", release CDs, and the like; paying for tools for
>> individual (or groups of) developers, such as real copies of the SQL
>> standard; or even paying for entry to the "industry" groups or
>> standards like TPC, ANSI, &c.?  The list is not exhaustive; make up
>> your own case.
>
> Personally, I think it's co-equal with the things above categorically,
> *except* for paying for a commercial booth at a conference, which I feel
> should be our lowest priority if we have cash just lying around.  It's the
> most expensive item, with the lowest benefit to the community.

In general I agree with this.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 05:56:49PM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Colleagues,
>
> Some recent discussion among the fund group[1] have included a number
> of arguments that how community funds are spent require something
> like community consensus about spending priorities.  Josh Drake has
> just posted a fundraising appeal.  I support his appeal; but I think
> that we need to have some discussion about how the community wants
> to spend money raised in its name.  Hence this note.
>
> Particularly pressing, in my view, is an open request to disburse
> funds for travel.  I think it would be singularly inappropriate to
> discuss the merits of individual requests here, on a list with a
> public archive[2].  But I do think it is correct to open the question
> of whether the community likes, in general, the idea of paying the
> air fare, accommodation, meeting fees, &c. for community
> representatives to speak in various locations around the world.
>
> I think the following two questions need answers:
>
> 1.    Do we think it is a good idea, in general, to fund
> individuals' travel, assuming such individuals are fairly prominent
> members of the community?

Very often the conferences will pay for the speakers as they did for
me in Venezuela last week.  However, there are those conferences
which cannot afford such luxuries.  For those conferences, our presence
is usually very welcome and well received.  I would certainly consider
more conferences if the tab were paid.  I'm sure there are at least
a handful of us willing to travel to more conferences is the trips
were paid for.

Based on our generous welcome in Venezuela's Foro Mundial, people are very
pleased to see open source alternatives to Oracle and ways to move
away from mysql.

>
> 2.    If the answer to (1) is "yes", what weight do such cases
> carry compared to other possible expenditures, such as paying coders
> for features; paying for hardware or network service; paying for
> community presence at exhibitions (e.g. getting a "commercial" booth
> at a trade fair); paying for marketing such as advertisements,
> conference "swag", release CDs, and the like; paying for tools for
> individual (or groups of) developers, such as real copies of the SQL
> standard; or even paying for entry to the "industry" groups or
> standards like TPC, ANSI, &c.?  The list is not exhaustive; make up
> your own case.
>
> It is critical, in this discussion, to understand that votes can't be
> taken here on specific cases.  In fact, the entire authority for
> disbursement currently rests with one person -- one whose authority
> can be rescinded by the PGFG at any time, but who nevertheless has
> complete control over financial decisions until that time.  This is
> on purpose, because we were attempting to make the process as
> lightweight as possible in order to ensure quick decisions could be
> made for relatively trivial cases.  We are relying on the traditional
> good faith of the community participants, plus the observant eye of
> the wider community, to avoid abuses.[3]
>
> With all of that said, I eagerly solicit your views.
>
> Best,
> A
>
> [1] Owing to what might be a lacuna in the PGFG charter, it appears
> unwise to call it by its "official" name, which is "fundraising
> group".
>
> [2] You are welcome to disagree with this assertion, but I ask you to
> start another thread if you want to.
>
> [3] This arrangement is not, in my opinion, controversial; in fact, I
> think it's a good idea.  But if you think otherwise, please see note
> [2].
>
> --
> Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
> In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
> garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism.
>                 --Brad Holland

I also agree that infrastructure comes first, then travel and all else.

>
--elein@varlena.com

I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
If they don't do anything, we don't need their acronym.
        --Josh Hamilton, on the US FEMA

On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 12:25:46PM -0700, elein wrote:
> I also agree that infrastructure comes first, then travel and all else.

+1. We do ourselves a big dis-service every time a public-facing service
(ie: search) is down on isn't functioning as expected. Unfortunately,
this still seems to be a monthly occurence (though it's gotten a lot
better in the past year or two). I know money doesn't solve all
problems, but we need to make sure it's not causing them.
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
> I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
> But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
> far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
> Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?

It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
funding developers.

I travel occasionally to talk in nearby countries, but the inviter has
to pay the fares.  Only once I had to refuse because they didn't have
the money.

--
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro,

> It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> funding developers.

Oh, I think there is.  Again, though, that's a "big ticket" item that will
come when we have more money in the bank.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Thursday 26 October 2006 16:26, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> > I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
> > I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
> > But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
> > far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
> > Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?
>
> It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> funding developers.

I'd rather see it fund specific features rather than specific developers. In
the same way I think it would be acceptable for developers to make a propsal
to request funds to deal with specific todo's.

>
> I travel occasionally to talk in nearby countries, but the inviter has
> to pay the fares.  Only once I had to refuse because they didn't have
> the money.

--


Darcy Buskermolen
The PostgreSQL company, Command Prompt Inc.

ajs@crankycanuck.ca (Andrew Sullivan) writes:
> I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
> I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
> But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
> far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
> Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?

I could weigh in; in view that I have put in a funds request
submission for the recent Ohio LinuxFest trip, I presumably have even
more bias in the matter than even those that are responsible for the
disbursements. :-)

That being said, my preferences would fall similarly to others; if
there are places where putting money into project infrastructure would
provide benefits, that would seem "priority #1" to me.

Secondary would be to improve the ability to get people to do
publicity and development.
--
select 'cbbrowne' || '@' || 'cbbrowne.com';
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/postgresql.html
I can see clearly now, the brain is gone...

alvherre@commandprompt.com (Alvaro Herrera) writes:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
>> I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
>> But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
>> far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
>> Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?
>
> It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> funding developers.

The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
arrange.

It would be of very little value, for instance to try to increase
development efforts by giving out $500.  The amount of money would
need to be more along the lines of a "salary-replacing" amount, and
I'm not sure that SPI is in a position to be able to easily cope with
that, either.

Paying someone a salary mandates setting up an "employment"
arrangement, which draws the organization into the not inconsiderable
complexities of having to deal with labour and employment laws.
Governments are not ungenerous in the imposition of regulations in
these areas.

In contrast, it is relatively straightforward to reimburse people for
travel costs.
--
"cbbrowne","@","acm.org"
http://cbbrowne.com/info/spiritual.html
"A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle."
-- Bertrand Russell

On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 04:27:13PM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> > It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> > funding developers.
>
> The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
> arrange.
> ...

How about a bounty system, where you describe work to be done and give a
fixed price or the implementation and people can apply for this job?

Michael
--
Michael Meskes
Email: Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org)
ICQ: 179140304, AIM/Yahoo: michaelmeskes, Jabber: meskes@jabber.org
Go SF 49ers! Go Rhein Fire! Use Debian GNU/Linux! Use PostgreSQL!

On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 06:31:02PM -0700, Michael Dean wrote:
> However, lacking a concrete organization where lines of authority are
> clearly understood and established, this is easier said than done!

Presumably, we don't have that problem here.  A proposal could come
to the funds group liason, and the laison would decide whether to
fund it or not.  I'd expect an arrangement of percentages of agreed
funding for milestones reached.

> In addition, all "advocacy" operations are rather statically
> established and contain significant assumptions related to efficacy
> that I certainly question, but obviously no one in the "core" group
> does.

I have no idea what that sentence means.  Care to explain it?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
        --George Orwell

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 06:31:02PM -0700, Michael Dean wrote:
>> However, lacking a concrete organization where lines of authority are
>> clearly understood and established, this is easier said than done!
>
> Presumably, we don't have that problem here.  A proposal could come
> to the funds group liason, and the laison would decide whether to
> fund it or not.  I'd expect an arrangement of percentages of agreed
> funding for milestones reached.

Yep.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
>
>> In addition, all "advocacy" operations are rather statically
>> established and contain significant assumptions related to efficacy
>> that I certainly question, but obviously no one in the "core" group
>> does.
>>
>
> I have no idea what that sentence means.  Care to explain it?
>
> A
>
>
Perhaps "all" was too encompassing.  I refer here to the assumption,
based on anecdotal reporting, that postgresql participation in the 100
or so open source shows was efficacious, a necessary condition for
growth,the assumption that elephant pins help the cause, the assumption
that a CD of just the core database is helpful and necessary and
produces any results, and the assumption that increased features are
linked to increased use of the database.  And the assumption that
donated monies should be used to pay travel expenses.  The latter
doesn't fly very well in other groups such as ICANN and is considered by
some to be a form of corruption.

> Perhaps "all" was too encompassing.  I refer here to the assumption,
> based on anecdotal reporting, that postgresql participation in the 100
> or so open source shows was efficacious, a necessary condition for
> growth,the assumption that elephant pins help the cause, the assumption
> that a CD of just the core database is helpful and necessary and
> produces any results, and the assumption that increased features are
> linked to increased use of the database.  And the assumption that
> donated monies should be used to pay travel expenses.  The latter
> doesn't fly very well in other groups such as ICANN and is considered by
> some to be a form of corruption.

O.k. this is interesting but not really applicable here. We are not
flying people to business meetings. We are flying people to public talks
for advocacy. We also have requirements around the travel that produce
tangible results (such as requiring that we have the talk/presentation
in hand BEFORE, they leave for the show).

Joshua D. Drake



>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
>


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
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Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 26, 2006 at 06:31:02PM -0700, Michael Dean wrote:
>>
>>> However, lacking a concrete organization where lines of authority are
>>> clearly understood and established, this is easier said than done!
>>>
>> Presumably, we don't have that problem here.  A proposal could come
>> to the funds group liason, and the laison would decide whether to
>> fund it or not.  I'd expect an arrangement of percentages of agreed
>> funding for milestones reached.
>>
Ad hoc decisions by an appointed committee that is reactive to
indiosyncratic proposals seems somewhat unethical.  Perhaps I am wrong,
but wouldn't it be better if there were a document clearly specifying
spending priorities that was relatively accepted by consensus of a broad
group of pg'ers, and that an opportunity to qualify for these monies
could be promulgated to the broader group?

>>>> done!
>>> Presumably, we don't have that problem here.  A proposal could come
>>> to the funds group liason, and the laison would decide whether to
>>> fund it or not.  I'd expect an arrangement of percentages of agreed
>>> funding for milestones reached.
>>>
> Ad hoc decisions by an appointed committee that is reactive to
> indiosyncratic proposals seems somewhat unethical.  Perhaps I am wrong,
> but wouldn't it be better if there were a document clearly specifying
> spending priorities that was relatively accepted by consensus of a broad
> group of pg'ers, and that an opportunity to qualify for these monies
> could be promulgated to the broader group?

We have been through this over and over. We are not going to do it again.

The Liason determines where the money gets spent.

The Liason is accountable to the fundraising group.

The fundraising group is accountable to core.

If the Liason gets out of hand, he can be removed via a vote of the
fundraising group. There is a defined procedure for votes on the
fundraising site.

This is not likely to change in the near future as it is efficient and
allows for the most productivity.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
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             http://www.commandprompt.com/

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Am Montag, 30. Oktober 2006 16:50 schrieb Michael Dean:
> Ad hoc decisions by an appointed committee that is reactive to
> indiosyncratic proposals seems somewhat unethical.  Perhaps I am wrong,
> but wouldn't it be better if there were a document clearly specifying
> spending priorities that was relatively accepted by consensus of a broad
> group of pg'ers, and that an opportunity to qualify for these monies
> could be promulgated to the broader group?

That is the point of this discussion.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 07:46:03AM -0800, Michael Dean wrote:
> based on anecdotal reporting, that postgresql participation in the 100
> or so open source shows was efficacious, a necessary condition for
> growth,

. . .

> and the assumption that increased features are
> linked to increased use of the database.

None of the above (including all elided) seem to me to be
assumptions, but rather the opinions of people who have contributed
to make them happen.  I should note that so far, something
approaching $0 of direct donations have been used for the above
purposes anyway; but there is another point worth making here.

All of the above are clearly the sorts of things people are doing in
the wider software -- not just free software -- world.  So it would
seem to me that anyone who regards such marketing ventures as a
waste of time takes on h[im|er]self the burden of proof that
something else is a better idea.  My ears are open.

> And the assumption that
> donated monies should be used to pay travel expenses.

Given that this is exactly what the thread is about, you're going to
have a tough time arguing this is an "assumption".  It's a point open
for discussion, and suggesting otherwise begs the question.

> doesn't fly very well in other groups such as ICANN and is considered by
> some to be a form of corruption.

Surely you cannot seriously be holding ICANN up as the model for open
groups to follow?  Disclaimer: I actually have been to ICANN
meetings, and I'm also employed as one of the people whose lives go
all twitchy when ICANN decides to drum its collective fingers.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.  What do you do sir?
        --attr. John Maynard Keynes

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 07:50:41AM -0800, Michael Dean wrote:
> indiosyncratic proposals seems somewhat unethical.  Perhaps I am wrong,
> but wouldn't it be better if there were a document clearly specifying
> spending priorities that was relatively accepted by consensus of a broad
> group of pg'ers, and that an opportunity to qualify for these monies
> could be promulgated to the broader group?

Now that you have restated exactly my goal for starting this thread,
perhaps we could move on to the substance of the question?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
A certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are
against all taxes for raising money to pay it off.
        --Alexander Hamilton

Josh,

> The Liason determines where the money gets spent.
>
> The Liason is accountable to the fundraising group.
>
> The fundraising group is accountable to core.

Also: The FG and the Liason get their *broad* priorities from the general
community, via the pgsql-advocacy mailing list.

So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:

1) Infrastructure, if any money is needed for that;

2) PostgreSQL promotional speaker travel, promotional literature and CDs,
memberships in appropriate external organizations, paid development and
testing tools,  and development of PostgreSQL features, with specific
tradeoffs to be determined by cost/benefit analysis.

3) Trade show booths, if we have lots of $$$.

I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,
and quite a bit of agreement with it.  So if someone disagrees with any of
the above, how about some specific points of disagreement with arguments
backing them up?   Otherwise, we're going to call it a consensus and go
with it.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

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Hash: SHA1


> 2) PostgreSQL promotional speaker travel, promotional literature and CDs,
> memberships in appropriate external organizations, paid development and
> testing tools,  and development of PostgreSQL features, with specific
> tradeoffs to be determined by cost/benefit analysis.
...
> So if someone disagrees with any of the above, how about some specific
> points of disagreement with arguments backing them up?

Well, number 2 could certainly be broken apart a little bit. Specifically,
I'd list the priorities therein as:

1) Membership in important organizations
2) Promotional literature
3) Paid development work
4) Speaker travel

Number three is important but probably unlikely outside of a bounty/summer of
code thing, due to the heavy costs and legalities involved in employing someone
full time. Number four is usually handled by people's employers, and should be
a fairly rare event. Numbers one and two are most important as they spread
Postgres' credibility with managmement and help people to
explain/advocate/discover Postgres.

I'd also put infrastructure lower than all of those, only because lack of
funds seems not to be the issue there, judging by the number of companies
and individuals who have offered to help out.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200610301601
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 11:59:20AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:

I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.

> I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,

I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
people who are not part of the funds group to speak.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Information security isn't a technological problem.  It's an economics
problem.
        --Bruce Schneier

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
> had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
> group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.

I agree: it tells me that this list is not very well subscribed. Perhaps
we should "advertise" this list/discussion on the general list. Or
the website, the announce list, and the PWN (which IMO should be
covering activity on this list anyway). Perhaps even a poll? :)

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200610301642
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On 30 Oct 2006 at 21:45, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

>
> > I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
> > had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
> > group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.
>
> I agree: it tells me that this list is not very well subscribed.

There are many possible reasons for lack of comments.  Some might be:

- nothing to say on the matter
- don't have time
- aren't reading just now
- can't be bothered
- have tired of the subject

> Perhaps we should "advertise" this list/discussion on the general list.
> Or the website, the announce list, and the PWN (which IMO should be
> covering activity on this list anyway). Perhaps even a poll? :)

Anyone who is interested in advocacy or has something to say about it
should be on the list.  This is the place for that.

IMHO, polling is not an effective way of getting something done.

--
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 11:59:20AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>> So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:
>>
>
> I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
> had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
> group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.
>
>
>> I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,
>>
>
> I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
> speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
> people who are not part of the funds group to speak.
>
> A
>
>
When I made a suggestion to Josh Berkus that all of those things in
priority 2 needed to be broken out, and when I suggested that the broad
membership be given a chance to rank more highly specified items, and
when I suggested that trade shows and booths be ranked as well, in terms
of attendance, control and size, Josh summarily dismissed my suggestions
aS BEING A WASTE OF TIME!  I was about to leave the group in disgust --
in the past I offered to buy space on the website, to write, etc. but
his summary dismissal of what to me is just plain common sense made me
mad!  I realize that everyone is a volunteer, but ...

Dan Langille wrote:
> On 30 Oct 2006 at 13:59, Michael Dean wrote:
>
>
>> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 11:59:20AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
>>> had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
>>> group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
>>> speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
>>> people who are not part of the funds group to speak.
>>>
>>> A
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> When I made a suggestion to Josh Berkus that all of those things in
>> priority 2 needed to be broken out, and when I suggested that the broad
>> membership be given a chance to rank more highly specified items, and
>> when I suggested that trade shows and booths be ranked as well, in terms
>> of attendance, control and size, Josh summarily dismissed my suggestions
>> aS BEING A WASTE OF TIME!  I was about to leave the group in disgust --
>> in the past I offered to buy space on the website, to write, etc. but
>> his summary dismissal of what to me is just plain common sense made me
>> mad!  I realize that everyone is a volunteer, but ...
>>
>
> Micheal,
>
> Are you referring to this post?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2006-10/msg00181.php
>
>
no, since josh and i have had a series of disagreements over the last
year, it was a private post to him.  Usually he posts my privates posts
to the group, but this time he did not.

On 30 Oct 2006 at 13:59, Michael Dean wrote:

> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 11:59:20AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> >
> >> So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:
> >>
> >
> > I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
> > had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
> > group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.
> >
> >
> >> I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,
> >>
> >
> > I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
> > speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
> > people who are not part of the funds group to speak.
> >
> > A
> >
> >
> When I made a suggestion to Josh Berkus that all of those things in
> priority 2 needed to be broken out, and when I suggested that the broad
> membership be given a chance to rank more highly specified items, and
> when I suggested that trade shows and booths be ranked as well, in terms
> of attendance, control and size, Josh summarily dismissed my suggestions
> aS BEING A WASTE OF TIME!  I was about to leave the group in disgust --
> in the past I offered to buy space on the website, to write, etc. but
> his summary dismissal of what to me is just plain common sense made me
> mad!  I realize that everyone is a volunteer, but ...

Micheal,

Are you referring to this post?

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2006-10/msg00181.php

--
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php

Andrew, Greg,

> I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
> speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
> people who are not part of the funds group to speak.

Um, who other than Greg?  Who is a member of the FG.  I don't count Michael
Dean because his posts are off-topic most of the time, and he's not
exactly a contributor.  Anyway, discussion with Greg continues below.

The fact that it's members of the FG who have issued opinions on how to
spend money is unsurprising.  People were selected for the FG in the first
place because they were interested in fundraising.  All that we've proven
here is that we actually made a pretty good selection: we seem to have
everyone who cares.

> Well, number 2 could certainly be broken apart a little bit.

Sure, but I was hoping to avoid getting into vague arguments of
hypotheticals, which have a tendency never to conclude on this list.  I
think that concrete funding requests are a lot easier to resolve than
general rules.

> Specifically, I'd list the priorities therein as:
>
> 1) Membership in important organizations
> 2) Promotional literature
> 3) Paid development work
> 4) Speaker travel

See, I was trying to avoid this because I don't think that we can make
hard-and-fast rules about priorities by category.  For example, a full
membership in TPC is $20,000 and we'd be unlikely to be listened to even
as full members.  Would you rate that over paying for 15 different trips
by PostgreSQL keynote speakers to South America, Asia and the Middle East,
each speaking to between 200 and 3000 people?  I wouldn't.

I really think that actual decisions about spending money have to be based
on "bang for the buck."  Now, if you were to day "bang for the buck being
equal, we should prioritize things this way ..." I might agree with you
(probably not, though ... I have a low opinion of memberships).

How would you prioritize in development tools, like test machines and
benchmarks?  #5, or somewhere in the middle?  Personally, *all other
things being equal*, I'd tend to address concerns in this order:

1) Promotional literature etc.
2) Developer Tools
3) Speaker travel
4) Paid development work
5) Membership in other orgs

... however, as previously said, that would be considerably slanted by the
invidual opportunity being discussed.

> Number three is important but probably unlikely outside of a
> bounty/summer of code thing, due to the heavy costs and legalities
> involved in employing someone full time.

Well, that was actually *exactly* what I've been thinking of.   We had
probably 15 really good Summer of Code proposals and Google only paid for
7 of them.  What if the PostgreSQL fund picked up the other eight next
year?

> Number four is usually handled
> by people's employers, and should be a fairly rare event.

It's not rare.  Please read over prior posts on this thread.  We are
*frequently* asked to speak at conferences which, due to excange rates or
being new conferences, are unable to pay full airfare and hotel for
PostgreSQL people.   As previously mentioned, only three or four people in
our whole worldwide community have employers who pay for PostgreSQL
appearances regularly.

> Numbers one
> and two are most important as they spread Postgres' credibility with
> managmement and help people to
> explain/advocate/discover Postgres.

Yes, but we need to go to conferences to get them that literature in the
first place, and for that matter membership in standards bodies doesn't do
us a lot of good if we don't send someone to the meetings ... which *we*
will have to pay for.

> I'd also put infrastructure lower than all of those, only because lack
> of funds seems not to be the issue there, judging by the number of
> companies and individuals who have offered to help out.

But if funds *were* needed, wouldn't it be the top priority?

--


--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Michael,

>  I was about to leave the group in disgust --
> in the past I offered to buy space on the website, to write, etc.

No, you haven't.  You haven't done a darned thing to contribute to
PostgreSQL.  You haven't donated time, money, contacts, or anything else
that I've ever seen.   Heck, you even attended Linux World Expo and didn't
volunteer to help out at the PostgreSQL booth.

I sent you a private e-mail that if you wanted people to listen to your
opinions, you should lead by example, by contributing to the project.  If
you continue to pick arguments which make no sense, as a non-contributor,
then you *are* wasting people's time.  And yesterday, you *agreed* with me
that you should really start contributing.

The fact that you mean well ... and that I know that you did eventually
contribute useful time to OpenOffice.org ... has kept me from
unsubscribing you from this list.  But please start thinking like a
contributor and a participant in a community of consensus.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Monday 30 October 2006 01:13 pm, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 11:59:20AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > So far, the consensus is that our priorities are as follows:
>
> I don't see any consensus at all.  So far, almost everyone who has
> had anything to say about this is in fact a member of the funds
> group.  That makes me pretty uneasy.
>
> > I haven't seen any disagreement with that specific ranking of priorities,
>
> I have: we just had someone objecting to the very idea of either
> speaker subsidies or trade show booths.  And that was one of the only
> people who are not part of the funds group to speak.
>
> A

In response to Andrews request for input from non fund group members I offer
the following.

1) The issue of consensus from the Postgres community. At one time I recall a
number of 21,000 for subscribers to pgsql-general. By the time a consensus
was reached on a issue the issue would be moot or the money would have turned
to dust. The present set up of a select group making final decisions works
for me. The community is sufficiently vocal, that I anticipate no shortage of
feedback on the wisdom of the choices made. Further, my experience to date is
that people in positions of authority in the community are by in large
responsive to the  thoughts/mutterings/gripes of the community.

2) My thoughts. I am writing this as an end user and as a member of the
Organizing committee of LinuxFest NW  (linuxfestnorthwest.org/). Last year
Jim Nasby spoke at LFNW, funded by his employer Pervasive. He was the lone
Postgres speaker in a conference that had a team of people from MySQL and
another team from Oracle. Oracle and MySQL are planning on returning,
Pervasive is out of the Postgres business. In my role as organizer I would
like to see Postgres represented, but money is short. So my vote would be to
fund speakers. Short of that promotional materials would be nice. Something
to counteract the Oracle and MySQL names floating about on t-shirts,bumper
stickers,coffee mugs,etc. The Live CD was created too late for last years
Fest but I am looking how to incorporate it in this years event.
As an end user, I have some other thoughts. A lot of the discussion I see here
and on pgsql-general seems to revolve around a change in end user. To me it
seems Postgres is making the transition from experimenters/early adopters to
a more conservative group of users. By this I mean users who are interested
in safety in numbers. These users want assurances that other people are using
Postgres, and that there are companies/people available to guide them. To
pull in these people case studies, usage statistics and support lists are in
order.  So I could see money going to increase these areas.

Thank you,
--
Adrian Klaver
aklaver@comcast.net

Adrian,

> 2) My thoughts. I am writing this as an end user and as a member of the
> Organizing committee of LinuxFest NW  (linuxfestnorthwest.org/). Last
> year Jim Nasby spoke at LFNW, funded by his employer Pervasive. He was
> the lone Postgres speaker in a conference that had a team of people from
> MySQL and another team from Oracle. Oracle and MySQL are planning on
> returning, Pervasive is out of the Postgres business. In my role as
> organizer I would like to see Postgres represented, but money is short.

Actually, we have a bunch of community in Seattle and in British
Columbia ... how far is Bellingham?

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Monday 30 October 2006 03:42 pm, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Adrian,
>
> > 2) My thoughts. I am writing this as an end user and as a member of the
> > Organizing committee of LinuxFest NW  (linuxfestnorthwest.org/). Last
> > year Jim Nasby spoke at LFNW, funded by his employer Pervasive. He was
> > the lone Postgres speaker in a conference that had a team of people from
> > MySQL and another team from Oracle. Oracle and MySQL are planning on
> > returning, Pervasive is out of the Postgres business. In my role as
> > organizer I would like to see Postgres represented, but money is short.
>
> Actually, we have a bunch of community in Seattle and in British
> Columbia ... how far is Bellingham?
To Seattle 90 miles.
To the BC border 21 miles.
--
Adrian Klaver
aklaver@comcast.net

Hi all

 > There are many possible reasons for lack of comments.  Some might be:

another one:
I think we are talking of something we don't really have

Of course it is important to decide what should be funded and what not
but it is difficult to decide a priority list for the future. In my
experience the nicest plans are melting if something unexpected
happens which may be at the last position of the plan but must be done
first.

If for example funding coders is on the first place and a server
crashes I'm sure you buy new servers first and postpone paying the coder.

just my thoughts

Conni

> Number three is important but probably unlikely outside of a bounty/summer of
> code thing, due to the heavy costs and legalities involved in employing someone
> full time. Number four is usually handled by people's employers, and should be

Actually this isn't really as much of an issue as people think.

If the person is outside the US (except for CA), the person is
automatically a contractor and thus employment issues are moot.

If the person is in the US/CA we can pay them, quite healthy sums of
money as long as they are already gainfully employed. It will just be
their responsibility to file the income with the IRS.

If the person is in the US/CA and they have a company, we could
negotiate a rate with the company.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

>
>> Perhaps we should "advertise" this list/discussion on the general list.
>> Or the website, the announce list, and the PWN (which IMO should be
>> covering activity on this list anyway). Perhaps even a poll? :)
>
> Anyone who is interested in advocacy or has something to say about it
> should be on the list.  This is the place for that.

To second the above. If the people can't be bothered to subscribe to the
list and participate, I am not really interested in their opinion.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

> I really think that actual decisions about spending money have to be based
> on "bang for the buck."  Now, if you were to day "bang for the buck being
> equal, we should prioritize things this way ..." I might agree with you
> (probably not, though ... I have a low opinion of memberships).

I pretty much have zero desire to spend money on *any* memberships.
Frankly, the only way I would even consider it would be if a company
like OTG or CMD made a donation specifically for the purchase of a
membership.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Joshua D. Drake replied:
>> Anyone who is interested in advocacy or has something to say about it
>> should be on the list.  This is the place for that.

> To second the above. If the people can't be bothered to subscribe to the
> list and participate, I am not really interested in their opinion.

How will people know about this list? How will they know that there are
actually potentially important decisions being discussed on the list?

Perhaps by drilling down to

http://www.postgresql.org/community/lists/

and then reading this?:

pgsql-advocacy          PostgreSQL vs. the rest. Promotional ideas, etc.

All I'm suggesting is that we can do better than that: let's advocate
for the advocacy list a little bit. I also see no reason not to discuss
this on pg-general, as advocacy has traditionally been about promoting
Postgres. How the community decides to spend the money is a different
beast altogether, and the community is far better represented by
pg-general than the small group on advocacy.

Adrian Klaver writes:

> The issue of consensus from the Postgres community. At one time I recall a
> number of 21,000 for subscribers to pgsql-general. By the time a consensus
> was reached on a issue the issue would be moot or the money would have turned
> to dust.

And other people are complaining about the lack of feedback and discussion! :)
Can't have it both ways. This is not a vote: it's up to the Liason to act
or not act based on feedback they get from the community. I'd rather have a
discussion involving as much of the community as possible.


- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200610302147
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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> The fact that it's members of the FG who have issued opinions on how to
> spend money is unsurprising.  People were selected for the FG in the first
> place because they were interested in fundraising.  All that we've proven
> here is that we actually made a pretty good selection: we seem to have
> everyone who cares.

Excellent point.

> Sure, but I was hoping to avoid getting into vague arguments of
> hypotheticals, which have a tendency never to conclude on this list.  I
> think that concrete funding requests are a lot easier to resolve than
> general rules.

Sure, I was just stating my priorities.

> See, I was trying to avoid this because I don't think that we can make
> hard-and-fast rules about priorities by category.

Who is making rules? These are guidelines at best, and certainly flexible
on a case-by-case basis.

> For example, a full membership in TPC is $20,000 and we'd be unlikely to
> be listened to even as full members.  Would you rate that over paying for
> 15 different trips by PostgreSQL keynote speakers to South America, Asia
> and the Middle East, each speaking to between 200 and 3000 people?
> I wouldn't.

I would. TPC needs to happen - if no corporate entity is going to step up
to the plate, we need to make it happen ourselves. Consider it an investment:
TPC may end up allowing more large companies to join us (publically) and they
could then be hit up for a large donation.

> How would you prioritize in development tools, like test machines and
> benchmarks?  #5, or somewhere in the middle?

Well, I'd put the buildfarm pretty darned high: if it needed money, that would
certainly be #1, barring anything else. Specific test machines? Pretty low,
as I don't see a strong need for them. "Benchmarks" is pretty generic,
but we could certainly use some good ones - it's something highly asked
about, for better or for worse, so if some money would produce a good one we
could point people to, I'd put that pretty high.

The problem is that for all of these categories, you, I, and everyone else
can come up with high priority examples and low priority examples for each one.

> 1) Promotional literature etc.

I think almost everyone agrees on this. Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever settled down?
Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?

> Well, that was actually *exactly* what I've been thinking of.   We had
> probably 15 really good Summer of Code proposals and Google only paid for
> 7 of them.  What if the PostgreSQL fund picked up the other eight next
> year?

That would be a Good Thing. +1.

> It's not rare.  Please read over prior posts on this thread.  We are
> *frequently* asked to speak at conferences which, due to excange rates or
> being new conferences, are unable to pay full airfare and hotel for
> PostgreSQL people.

These opportunities should be widely disseminated to try and find available
people. I certainly agree to advocacy group needs to be doing a better
job of representing Postgres at conferences. A page listing upcoming
conferences and speakers needed would be nice.

> But if funds *were* needed, wouldn't it [infrastructure] be the top priority?

Well, of course, but as I've said, the infrastructure has problems that
throwing money at will not help.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200610302200
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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On 31 Oct 2006 at 2:50, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

> Joshua D. Drake replied:
> >> Anyone who is interested in advocacy or has something to say about it
> >> should be on the list.  This is the place for that.
>
> > To second the above. If the people can't be bothered to subscribe to the
> > list and participate, I am not really interested in their opinion.
>
> How will people know about this list? How will they know that there are
> actually potentially important decisions being discussed on the list?

That's what advocacy is about.  Getting involved.  That's how
projects work.

> Perhaps by drilling down to
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/community/lists/
>
> and then reading this?:
>
> pgsql-advocacy          PostgreSQL vs. the rest. Promotional ideas, etc.

Well, that's what advocacy is all about.  If you're interested in
promoting PostgreSQL, then you're here.  If you're not, you're not.

You are suggesting is advocacy of advocacy.  Great.  Enjoy.  I would
prefer to spend my time on more productive things.  Like actually
doing the work that needs to be done.

> Adrian Klaver writes:
>
> > The issue of consensus from the Postgres community. At one time I recall a
> > number of 21,000 for subscribers to pgsql-general. By the time a consensus
> > was reached on a issue the issue would be moot or the money would have turned
> > to dust.
>
> And other people are complaining about the lack of feedback and discussion! :)
> Can't have it both ways. This is not a vote: it's up to the Liason to act
> or not act based on feedback they get from the community. I'd rather have a
> discussion involving as much of the community as possible.

There are more people willing to talk than willing to do the work.
Contributors have much more say in what and how things get done than
people that just talk.  No, I don't want to spend endless hours
listening to the opinions of 21,000 people, most of whom won't lift a
finger to help, but are more than willing to tell you how they'd do
it.  There's just no time to run things that way.

--
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php

> The problem is that for all of these categories, you, I, and everyone else
> can come up with high priority examples and low priority examples for each one.
>
>>> 1) Promotional literature etc.
>
> I think almost everyone agrees on this. Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever settled down?
> Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?

We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
need by the end of the year.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

These opportunities should be widely disseminated to try and find available
people. I certainly agree to advocacy group needs to be doing a better
job of representing Postgres at conferences. A page listing upcoming
conferences and speakers needed would be nice. 

I have to second this.  I think that we'd be willing to put human resources into attending these things if there was a list up (so we could schedule events).  I would've gone to LISA, but it didn't make it on to my calendar soon enough.  I'm even willing to speak/present, and have staff that could do the same...  The same is true of the recent Linux conference in the UK...

I'd even take it a bit farther and say that some $$$ could go into listing some of the PostgreSQL core members (Bruce, Josh, Tom?) in one of those directories that reporters use to find sources for articles (I forget what it is called).  Such a listings value would be quantifiable after the first year (in number of calls/articles) and would provide industry authors a positive postgresql reference...  On second thought, I would even list the things not "in doubt", allowing the community to choose to fund (or even partially fund) sending someone to a conference.  That would allow some conference speakers to find their own sponsors - or even try to "split the difference" with a conference organizer.

Do we have any metrics as to the usefulness of the CD's?  I know that a lot of people walked away with them at LWE-SF, but I really have to wonder how many of those CD's ended up in a drive.  Is it possible to have a "phone home" type metric that we can use with these to measure how useful they are?  They seem cool, but I don't know that they are worth the $$$.  BTW, I think someone needs to do a full vacuum before re-creating the CD's.

Might it be useful to have a page listing things that need funding that are "in debate" and let people choose to fund them if they want to?  That would allow the community to focus spending on generally accepted stuff and then leave the "in debate" stuff for last (and hopefully some of it will be picked up along the way).  We'd just need some suggested $$ amounts..  This goes along the same lines as feature funding...

Anyone consider making a "donate to PostgreSQL" "tip" (such as the one at the bottom of this email)?

But if funds *were* needed, wouldn't it [infrastructure] be the top priority?   

Well, of course, but as I've said, the infrastructure has problems that
throwing money at will not help.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200610302200
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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=O4Cr
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---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to      choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not      match 

-- 
Chander Ganesan
The Open Technology Group
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999
http://www.otg-nc.com

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 03:38:48PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Sure, but I was hoping to avoid getting into vague arguments of
> hypotheticals, which have a tendency never to conclude on this list.  I
> think that concrete funding requests are a lot easier to resolve than
> general rules.

Well, just a second.  When we started having the discussion about
what fundraising targets and spending priorities were in the funds
group, the answer was that the general priorities have to come from
the community, so such a conversation needs to go on in public.  Now
that such a conversation is happening, I see a rush to declare
consensus without very many people in that wider community having
anything to say about it; and the hurry is apparently because we
don't like that public lists with no membership criteria tend to take
a long time to converge on consensus.

> hard-and-fast rules about priorities by category.  For example, a full
> membership in TPC is $20,000 and we'd be unlikely to be listened to even
> as full members.  Would you rate that over paying for 15 different trips
> by PostgreSQL keynote speakers to South America, Asia and the Middle East,
> each speaking to between 200 and 3000 people?  I wouldn't.

I might.  I'd have to think about it, and I'd especially like to
discuss it in terms of likely effectiveness with respect to community
goals.  Which means we need to come up with something like such a set
of goals.

For instance, if "building good database systems" is what is
important (this is a formulation Peter used recently), then actually
it seems to me that TPC or ANSI might be a better investment than the
prospect of some more users.  I don't know; but it seems to me we
need to thrash that out _somewhere_ before we charge off planning to
address funding requests.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
        --George Orwell

On Monday 30 October 2006 22:37, Chander Ganesan wrote:
> Anyone consider making a "donate to PostgreSQL" "tip" (such as the one
> at the bottom of this email)?
>

Would anyone be against that?  Let's add something like "TIP NN: You can help
support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate"

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > The problem is that for all of these categories, you, I, and everyone
> > else can come up with high priority examples and low priority examples
> > for each one.
> >
> >>> 1) Promotional literature etc.
> >
> > I think almost everyone agrees on this. Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
> > settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>
> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
> need by the end of the year.
>

Ideally we would have these for LISA no?

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert Treat wrote:
> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>> The problem is that for all of these categories, you, I, and everyone
>>> else can come up with high priority examples and low priority examples
>>> for each one.
>>>
>>>>> 1) Promotional literature etc.
>>> I think almost everyone agrees on this. Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
>>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>> need by the end of the year.
>>
>
> Ideally we would have these for LISA no?

The 8.1? Of course. The 8.2, not likely. The timing is too short.

Joshua D. Drake




--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Robert Treat wrote:
> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:37, Chander Ganesan wrote:
>> Anyone consider making a "donate to PostgreSQL" "tip" (such as the one
>> at the bottom of this email)?
>>
>
> Would anyone be against that?  Let's add something like "TIP NN: You can help
> support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
> http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate"

I would personally like to see it persistent.

Joshua D. Drake




--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

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Hash: SHA1


TIP 7 added ... I can easily remove, but can't think of a reason why that is a
bad idea ...


- --On Monday, October 30, 2006 23:33:02 -0500 Robert Treat
<xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:

> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:37, Chander Ganesan wrote:
>> Anyone consider making a "donate to PostgreSQL" "tip" (such as the one
>> at the bottom of this email)?
>>
>
> Would anyone be against that?  Let's add something like "TIP NN: You can help
> support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
> http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate"
>
> --
> Robert Treat
> Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL



- ----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy@hub.org                              MSN . scrappy@hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664
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Am Montag, 30. Oktober 2006 23:38 schrieb Josh Berkus:
> See, I was trying to avoid this because I don't think that we can make
> hard-and-fast rules about priorities by category.  For example, a full
> membership in TPC is $20,000 and we'd be unlikely to be listened to even
> as full members.  Would you rate that over paying for 15 different trips
> by PostgreSQL keynote speakers to South America, Asia and the Middle East,
> each speaking to between 200 and 3000 people?  I wouldn't.

On this particular point, I have the opposite opinion.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
> > settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>
> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
> need by the end of the year.

Can we assume that you have the development already in hand because  I haven't
heard a peep about this.

Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>> .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
>>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>> need by the end of the year.
>
> Can we assume that you have the development already in hand because  I haven't
> heard a peep about this.

No we can not assume any such thing. ;)

Joshua D. Drake




>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at
>
>                 http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
>


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

On Tuesday 31 October 2006 10:10, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Robert Bernier wrote:
> > On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >>> .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
> >>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
> >>
> >> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
> >> need by the end of the year.
> >
> > Can we assume that you have the development already in hand because  I
> > haven't heard a peep about this.
>
> No we can not assume any such thing. ;)


In that case, you know where you can reach me :-)

Hi, Robert,
Hi, Joshua,

Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>> .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
>>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>> need by the end of the year.

What's the procedure for ordering a bunch of those CDs? What are the
costs? And is international shipping (Germany) possible in a constrained
time-frame (needed on 13th November)?

Thanks,
Markus
--
Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG
Dipl. Inf.     | Software Development GIS

Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org
www.nosoftwarepatents.org

Joshua,

What's our inventory of CDs right now?

On Tuesday 31 October 2006 10:32, Markus Schaber wrote:
> Hi, Robert,
> Hi, Joshua,
>
> > On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
> >> need by the end of the year.
>
> What's the procedure for ordering a bunch of those CDs? What are the
> costs? And is international shipping (Germany) possible in a constrained
> time-frame (needed on 13th November)?

Be advised, German customs was a real pain when we sent CDs a couple of years
ago. They wanted to put a charge on each CD because they chose to call it
a 'commercial' transaction.

On Monday 30 October 2006 18:48, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On Monday 30 October 2006 03:42 pm, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > > 2) My thoughts. I am writing this as an end user and as a member of the
> > > Organizing committee of LinuxFest NW  (linuxfestnorthwest.org/). Last
> > > year Jim Nasby spoke at LFNW, funded by his employer Pervasive. He was
> > > the lone Postgres speaker in a conference that had a team of people
> > > from MySQL and another team from Oracle. Oracle and MySQL are planning
> > > on returning, Pervasive is out of the Postgres business. In my role as
> > > organizer I would like to see Postgres represented, but money is short.
> >
> > Actually, we have a bunch of community in Seattle and in British
> > Columbia ... how far is Bellingham?
>
> To Seattle 90 miles.
> To the BC border 21 miles.

There's a bunch of pg users servicing the BC provincial govt, some of them are
faculty at UBC I think, they specialize in postgis.

On Tuesday 31 October 2006 00:09, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Robert Treat wrote:
> > On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >>> The problem is that for all of these categories, you, I, and everyone
> >>> else can come up with high priority examples and low priority examples
> >>> for each one.
> >>>
> >>>>> 1) Promotional literature etc.
> >>>
> >>> I think almost everyone agrees on this. Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
> >>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
> >>
> >> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
> >> need by the end of the year.
> >
> > Ideally we would have these for LISA no?
>
> The 8.1? Of course. The 8.2, not likely. The timing is too short.
>

Hence "ideal"

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

> Can we assume that you have the development already in hand because  I
> haven't heard a peep about this.

I'd still like to see you and Koen join forces.  Possible?

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Peter, Greg,

> > See, I was trying to avoid this because I don't think that we can make
> > hard-and-fast rules about priorities by category.  For example, a full
> > membership in TPC is $20,000 and we'd be unlikely to be listened to
> > even as full members.  Would you rate that over paying for 15
> > different trips by PostgreSQL keynote speakers to South America, Asia
> > and the Middle East, each speaking to between 200 and 3000 people?  I
> > wouldn't.
>
> On this particular point, I have the opposite opinion.

Can you explan why?   I'm not clear on your priorities.

Please note that the TPC thing was just a hypothetical extreme example,
since as an NPO we can join TPC for $1500 per year.  On the other hand,
it's a good example, because a TPC membership does us no good if nobody
attends the TPC meetings ... which gets us into paying for travel again.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 11:41:48AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> it's a good example, because a TPC membership does us no good if nobody
> attends the TPC meetings ... which gets us into paying for travel again.

I won't speak for Peter, but explaining to my bosses why giving money
for sending some backend developer to a TPC meeting is a good idea
would take me about 10 minutes.  Explaining why giving money to
someone to go and talk about PostgreSQL as a marketing exercise is,
for me, going to take rather longer, and likely with fewer results.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Windows is a platform without soap, where rats run around
in open sewers.
        --Daniel Eran

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Can you explan why?   I'm not clear on your priorities.

Some of the popular items such as travel and promotional materials are
primarily suitable for recruiting new users.  But that doesn't really
do anything for our existing users, who, by the way, are likely to be
the primary source of donations.

> Please note that the TPC thing was just a hypothetical extreme
> example, since as an NPO we can join TPC for $1500 per year.  On the
> other hand, it's a good example, because a TPC membership does us no
> good if nobody attends the TPC meetings ... which gets us into paying
> for travel again.

A TPC membership would give us the ability to actually do the
benchmarks.  I don't know if attendance at any meeting is required for
that.

But that would be travel for the purpose of enhancing PostgreSQL rather
than for the purpose of advocating to potential users.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

On Tuesday 31 October 2006 18:11, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Can you explan why?   I'm not clear on your priorities.
>
> Some of the popular items such as travel and promotional materials are
> primarily suitable for recruiting new users.  But that doesn't really
> do anything for our existing users, who, by the way, are likely to be
> the primary source of donations.
>

ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for our
existing users.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Markus Schaber wrote:
> Hi, Robert,
> Hi, Joshua,
>
> Robert Bernier wrote:
>> On Monday 30 October 2006 22:25, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>> .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
>>>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>>> need by the end of the year.
>
> What's the procedure for ordering a bunch of those CDs? What are the
> costs? And is international shipping (Germany) possible in a constrained
> time-frame (needed on 13th November)?

Would it not be better to give you the art and the iso?

Joshua D. Drake


>
> Thanks,
> Markus


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Robert Treat wrote:
> On Tuesday 31 October 2006 18:11, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> Josh Berkus wrote:
>>> Can you explan why?   I'm not clear on your priorities.
>> Some of the popular items such as travel and promotional materials are
>> primarily suitable for recruiting new users.  But that doesn't really
>> do anything for our existing users, who, by the way, are likely to be
>> the primary source of donations.
>>
>
> ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for our
> existing users.

+1

The larger our community, the stronger our community, the more likely
our community is to support further development (code and community).

You *can not* have one without the other. They are dependent on each other.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake




--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Hi, Robert,

Robert Bernier wrote:

>>>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>>>> need by the end of the year.
>> What's the procedure for ordering a bunch of those CDs? What are the
>> costs? And is international shipping (Germany) possible in a constrained
>> time-frame (needed on 13th November)?
>
> Be advised, German customs was a real pain when we sent CDs a couple of years
> ago. They wanted to put a charge on each CD because they chose to call it
> a 'commercial' transaction.

I think it's possible to declare them appropriately, I'll investigate.

Alternatively, it may be possible to send the Disks to Switzerland,
where I work, when their customs are better.

HTH,
Markus

Hi, Josh,

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

>>>>> .... Has the LiveCD brouhaha ever
>>>>> settled down? Do we have a CD/DVD ready to go?
>>>> We have an 8.1 CD yes. We do not have an 8.2 CD which we will presumably
>>>> need by the end of the year.
>> What's the procedure for ordering a bunch of those CDs? What are the
>> costs? And is international shipping (Germany) possible in a constrained
>> time-frame (needed on 13th November)?
> Would it not be better to give you the art and the iso?

A good idea, I could burn a bunch of them.

Is the iso available via HTTP / FTP / Torrent?

Markus

On Wednesday 01 November 2006 02:32, Markus Schaber wrote:
> Is the iso available via HTTP / FTP / Torrent?

Try this:
http://www.sraapowergres.com/~bernier/pg_live-2.0.iso
http://www.sraapowergres.com/~bernier/pg_live-2.0.iso.checksum


robert

On Tue, Oct 31, 2006 at 08:18:22PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:
>
> ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for our
> existing users.

First, I'm not sure I buy that argument at all.  I _used_ to be
worried about our user base, but it now seems to me to be growing in
a healthy way, attracting exactly the sort of users I want to see:
people who are used to serious data systems, working in industry and
telcos and the like, who want a system that is comparable to the
expensive systems they can buy, except without the big license
agreements and with the advantages of code they can see and, if need
be, fix.

But in any case, how does funding participation in data standards
groups, by which participation PostgreSQL can become a better system,
not expand the user base?  If we seriously believe that an advantage
of free software is that it can be better than the alternatives, then
presumably avenues to better software ought to be the highest
priority.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
In the future this spectacle of the middle classes shocking the avant-
garde will probably become the textbook definition of Postmodernism.
                --Brad Holland

Robert Treat wrote:
> ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> our existing users.

Why?

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

On 11/1/06, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
> Robert Treat wrote:
> > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > our existing users.
>
> Why?

- Enhancing the user base presumably should make it easier to find
additional staff with PostgreSQL skills.  That's not of infinite
value, but it's not of non-zero value.

- Wider spread usage should allow us to more readily find more third
party apps running atop PostgreSQL.  (There is, of course, a certain
risk that if PostgreSQL got "too hot," you'd see a lot more Really
Cruddy apps running atop it...  That's part of the burden that Certain
Other Databases deal with...)
--
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html
"If Ada became the hot, in-language  you would see a lot more bad code
in   Ada."
-- Thaddeus L.  Olczyk <olczyk@interaccess.com>, comp.lang.C++

Also sprach Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net)
> Robert Treat wrote:
> > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > our existing users.
>
> Why?

Today's new user might be tomorrow's new developer.

--
Pedites pugnas decernent    http://www.jaegerseiten.de    Horrido!


http://www.net-tex.de                                 http://www.cryptomancer.de

On 11/1/06, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher <stefan@net-tex.de> wrote:
> Also sprach Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net)
> > Robert Treat wrote:
> > > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > > our existing users.
> >
> > Why?
>
> Today's new user might be tomorrow's new developer.

I can't agree with that terribly strongly.

The easier we make it for people to add themselves to the user base,
the less likely they are to be to be as heavily committed as those who
joined the user base during "harder times."

That shouldn't be taken as an argument for trying to make PostgreSQL
harder to access, just that the easier we make it for people to join
the user base, the more people that are NOT deeply committed we'll see
come.

That being said, today's new user might be the one that, tomorrow,
helps get a port of Application Frobozz to PostgreSQL.  That's of
nonzero positive value :-).
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "cbbrowne.com")
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linuxdistributions.html
"I thought the idea with a  language was that you didn't have to point
and grunt" -- Chip Salzenberg

All,

I think that Peter has a point here ... both standards bodies and OSS
conferences attract new users.  The question is what kind of new users
we want to attract.  That is, while PostgreSQL can always use more Perl
hackers and OSS-CRMs supporting/using our database, it's probably more
important to attract the interest of bank CTOs and major manufacturer
procurement managers.  We want to be evaluated as an enterprise RDBMS
before an open source RDBMS.  So I can see that.

However, I'll stand my evaluation that we need to work on "bang for the
buck" basis.  Some of these standards bodies and trade groups can absorb
enormous amounts of money while delivering questionable benefits (having
been to TPC meetings, the TPC falls into this class in my mind) wheras
others are more modest and provide immediate opportunities.  So I might
put the latter ahead of flying David to Brazil, but not the former.

There's a thing we do at Sun and other large corporations called an
"ROI" where we go: this is how much money I need, and this is what I
expect us to get out of it.   I really think this is the approach we
should take on evaluating expenditures, rather than trying to say
"category x comes ahead of category y".

--Josh Berkus

On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:

> Also sprach Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net)
> > Robert Treat wrote:
> > > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > > our existing users.
> >
> > Why?
>
> Today's new user might be tomorrow's new developer.

Subsitute contributor and it's spot on.

Take the Bacula project for example. When I joined, nearly three
years ago, we had relatively few developers.  To attract more
deveopers, I started writing about Bacula, handing out brochures at
conferences, and giving talks to whoever would listen.  We grew.
With more users comes more people with an itch to scratch.  It is
those itches that move a project forward.

Why does Bacula have a PostgreSQL plug-in?  Because I wanted it.  And
I wrote it.  When I started with Bacula, I was just a user.  In
general, people becomes users, then they become contributors.

Take FreeBSD for example.  I started off as a user in 1998.  Eight
years later, I write two very popular websites (FreshPorts, FreeBSD
Diary), and run a very successful BSD conference (BSDCan).[1]

More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
they have no interest in.

Also note: projects do not live on development alone, not that I
think anyone was saying that.  I just thought it needed saying.

[1 -apologies for the blatent self promotion, but take the point, not
not the bragging]

--
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php

> But in any case, how does funding participation in data standards
> groups, by which participation PostgreSQL can become a better system,
> not expand the user base?

It certainly does however...

Which is growing faster, Linux? or FreeBSD?

We all know the answer, and it has nothing to do with one being
technically superior to the other and everything to do with the advocacy
and marketing that takes place with it.

I frankly don't care if it is large systems are small systems that we
grow our community with.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 02:57:53PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> There's a thing we do at Sun and other large corporations called an
> "ROI" where we go: this is how much money I need, and this is what I
> expect us to get out of it.   I really think this is the approach we
> should take on evaluating expenditures, rather than trying to say
> "category x comes ahead of category y".

I don't disagree with this; but every company also evaluates whole
classes of things from time to time, and says, "That's just not a
line we want to pursue."  My guess is that one could come up with a
proposal at Sun for a high-ROI on, say, a disposable cup line, and
nobody would even look at it, because it's not a line of business
they want to pusue (I know that's true of every place I've ever
worked).

Which is why asked the question, do we want to be in the business of
subsidising travel.  Others seem to think that the answer to that is
obvious.  But "travel" covers a lot of ground, and it seems to me
that we ought to have some set of ideas of what we're likely to fund
and what not, so that we don't have to waste a great deal of time
evaluating requests that we were never going to fund anyway.

Here are categories of travel, for instance, that I think might be
good to support:

- Invited talks to conferences in areas of current growth

    So, e.g. talks to PHP conferences, SIGs for communications
    and industrial developers, and geographic areas where we seem
    to have some traction.

- Developer travel to feature-development sessions

    I'm told that some people find it better and faster to get in
    a room together and work out how a feature should be
    implemented (particularly big, complicated ones).  Meetings
    for that sort of thing.

- Industry/standards bodies meetings

    I dunno about TPC or ANSI, but I'll tell you that IETF
    meetings are actually productive, in my experience.  It isn't
    especially what is decided in formal sessions, so much as the
    thrashing out of nascent proposals in the hallway, that make
    it worthwhile.  I suppose this is related to what's above.

But, for instance, I _don't_ think we should fund travel for
"regular" conference talks, or sending people to places where we have
a well-established presence like OSCON.

One thing about ROI analysis that does not translate well from
industry to open projects like this is the "return" part.  It isn't
plain _at all_ what the return in a project like this should be.  For
a company, it is plain: expected financial reward.  Since everything
in a firm's ROI calculation is measured in money, the comparison is
relatively easy.  But because we haven't monetised the community, we
can't compare everything in terms of money.  Therefore, we need to
think not only in terms of ROI, but also in terms of general goals of
the community.  That's what I'm trying to learn through this thread.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
If they don't do anything, we don't need their acronym.
        --Josh Hamilton, on the US FEMA

Josh Berkus wrote:

> However, I'll stand my evaluation that we need to work on "bang for
> the buck" basis.  Some of these standards bodies and trade groups can
> absorb enormous amounts of money while delivering questionable
> benefits (having been to TPC meetings, the TPC falls into this class
> in my mind) wheras others are more modest and provide immediate
> opportunities.  So I might put the latter ahead of flying David to
> Brazil, but not the former.
>
I can't speak to the productivity or lack thereof of attending TPC
meetings, except to say that somewhere I still have the poster that
reads "Meetings: the practical alternative to work!"  However, I do know
this: the "big boys" (Oracle, DB2, Sybase, even MSSQL) all talk a lot
about their TPC results- TPC-C this, TPC-D that, TPC-H this other
thing.  Having official TPC scores we can put up somewhere would cause
the CTOs, CIOs, and PHBs of this world to put us in the same mental
category as these databases- wether they beleive the results or not.
This also helps differentiate Postgres from MySql- a little quick
googling gave me a number of web pages which said that MySql was not
conformant enough to run TPC-C.

We don't even have to win the TPC benchmarks- simply competing puts
postgres in a different category.

Brian

Hi, Brian,

Brian Hurt wrote:

> We don't even have to win the TPC benchmarks- simply competing puts
> postgres in a different category.

I agree with this point.

And, additionally, this benchmarks could help the developers to improve
PostgreSQL specifically in those areas where it does not win yet.

HTH,
Markus
--
Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG
Dipl. Inf.     | Software Development GIS

Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org
www.nosoftwarepatents.org

On November 2, 2006 07:12 am, Markus Schaber wrote:
> Hi, Brian,
>
> Brian Hurt wrote:
> > We don't even have to win the TPC benchmarks- simply competing puts
> > postgres in a different category.
>
> I agree with this point.
>
> And, additionally, this benchmarks could help the developers to improve
> PostgreSQL specifically in those areas where it does not win yet.

Saying that we need to join TCP to be able to improve PostgreSQL is not
correct, we have access to a lot of "TPC like" tests
http://pgfoundry.org/projects/tpc-w-php for example, but because it's not an
official TPC test we can't announce it's results with any marketing weight.
Al that TPC provides us is some official marketing buzzwords and industry
babble.  Also the thought of altering PG in ways to make it perform better
specificaly for specific benchmarks is not what we should be throwing funds
or even more importantly developer time at.


--
Darcy Buskermolen
Command Prompt, Inc.
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/

Also sprach Dan Langille (dan@langille.org)
> On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>
> > Also sprach Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net)
> > > Robert Treat wrote:
> > > > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > > > our existing users.
> > >
> > > Why?
> >
> > Today's new user might be tomorrow's new developer.
>
> Subsitute contributor and it's spot on.
>
> Take the Bacula project for example. When I joined, nearly three
> years ago, we had relatively few developers.  To attract more
> deveopers, I started writing about Bacula, handing out brochures at
> conferences, and giving talks to whoever would listen.  We grew.
> With more users comes more people with an itch to scratch.  It is
> those itches that move a project forward.
>
> Why does Bacula have a PostgreSQL plug-in?  Because I wanted it.  And
> I wrote it.  When I started with Bacula, I was just a user.  In
> general, people becomes users, then they become contributors.

Same with me for NetBSD and PostgreSQL. When I begun with NetBSD, I
almost had no clue of Unix at all, now I am organizing advocacy for
NetBSD and writing documentation. Ditto for PostgreSQL, it got my
attention when someone asked me on a LinuxTag if I could compile
PostgreSQL on my HP Jornada 680 with NetBSD. Last semester I gave
several talks at the university about PG to attract new users.

> More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
> enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
> general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
> they have no interest in.

Without a large user base, it is hard for a project to survive. See
all those dead projects at sourceforge and co.

> Also note: projects do not live on development alone, not that I
> think anyone was saying that.  I just thought it needed saying.

Right, you do not only need developers, but also people
who do testing, promotion/advocacy, writing doc, answering on mailing
lists, wearing the shirts and so on.

Writing code that works is fun, but writing something that works and
getting an email from someone who is just grateful for your code is
great :-)

> [1 -apologies for the blatent self promotion, but take the point, not
> not the bragging]

Thanks for the PostgreSQL driver of Bacula, Bacula rocks :-)

--
Pedites pugnas decernent    http://www.jaegerseiten.de    Horrido!


http://www.net-tex.de                                 http://www.cryptomancer.de

Andrew,

> Which is why asked the question, do we want to be in the business of
> subsidising travel.  Others seem to think that the answer to that is
> obvious.  But "travel" covers a lot of ground, and it seems to me
> that we ought to have some set of ideas of what we're likely to fund
> and what not, so that we don't have to waste a great deal of time
> evaluating requests that we were never going to fund anyway.

+1

> Here are categories of travel, for instance, that I think might be
> good to support:
>
> - Invited talks to conferences in areas of current growth
>
>     So, e.g. talks to PHP conferences, SIGs for communications
>     and industrial developers, and geographic areas where we seem
>     to have some traction.
>
> - Developer travel to feature-development sessions
>
>     I'm told that some people find it better and faster to get in
>     a room together and work out how a feature should be
>     implemented (particularly big, complicated ones).  Meetings
>     for that sort of thing.
>
> - Industry/standards bodies meetings
>
>     I dunno about TPC or ANSI, but I'll tell you that IETF
>     meetings are actually productive, in my experience.  It isn't
>     especially what is decided in formal sessions, so much as the
>     thrashing out of nascent proposals in the hallway, that make
>     it worthwhile.  I suppose this is related to what's above.
>
> But, for instance, I _don't_ think we should fund travel for
> "regular" conference talks, or sending people to places where we have
> a well-established presence like OSCON.

I agree with all of this.

There needs to be one more evaluation point as well: how likely is one of our
corporate supporters to pay for each item with out general SPI funding?  For
example, for as long at I'm at Sun, PostgreSQL does not need a TPC
membership ... Sun has one (and, frankly, I wouldn't want to send a random
community member to TPC anyway, it's *highly* political and only secondarily
technical).  And for developer meetings, this year both EnterpriseDB and
Greenplum have paid for some, so if we needed a community-funded one it would
be for the clustering folks only.

> One thing about ROI analysis that does not translate well from
> industry to open projects like this is the "return" part.  It isn't
> plain _at all_ what the return in a project like this should be.  For
> a company, it is plain: expected financial reward.  Since everything
> in a firm's ROI calculation is measured in money, the comparison is
> relatively easy.  But because we haven't monetised the community, we
> can't compare everything in terms of money.  Therefore, we need to
> think not only in terms of ROI, but also in terms of general goals of
> the community.  That's what I'm trying to learn through this thread.

Well, there's a couple of "returns" in my mind: (a) the quantity and quality
of additional community members we can gain, and (b) what it adds to making
PostgreSQL a better ("more advanced") database.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:03:51AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Well, there's a couple of "returns" in my mind: (a) the quantity and quality
> of additional community members we can gain, and (b) what it adds to making
> PostgreSQL a better ("more advanced") database.

Ok, good.  Now we have two proposed (actually, I think three:
quantity and quality are different scales) measures of return on
investment.  Now, what we need to do is to evaluate the weight of
each, and then we have some sort of ruleish thing to evaluate with.

I don't want to pretent, with the management fetishists of the world,
that these things are somehow objective, or even enumerable in the
sense that dollars are.  But merely having an idea of what scales
"bang for the buck" is to be compared against is a giant step
forward.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
        --Jane Jacobs

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 04:30:45PM +0100, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher wrote:
> Without a large user base, it is hard for a project to survive. See
> all those dead projects at sourceforge and co.

It is very important for us, in this conversation, to understand
something: large user base != people who make a lot of noise on
Slashdot (or wherever you like).

I think there are very good reasons to believe that PostgreSQL _does_
now have a large user base.  There are some very significant
companies -- as someone recent pointed out, one of them has a much
larger revenue stream than Oracle Corp -- who have invested in
PostgreSQL.  There are some companies for whom PostgreSQL is now a
core part of their now-profitable business.  There is also an active
user and development community.  These may be areas of relatively
low-profile, quiet growth.  If you've ever had a lawn with creeping
charlie in it, though, you will realise that low-profile, quiet
growth does not mean that it is not pervasive and significant.

A
--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Windows is a platform without soap, where rats run around
in open sewers.
        --Daniel Eran

On Thursday 02 November 2006 12:48, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 04:30:45PM +0100, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher
wrote:
> > Without a large user base, it is hard for a project to survive. See
> > all those dead projects at sourceforge and co.
>
> It is very important for us, in this conversation, to understand
> something: large user base != people who make a lot of noise on
> Slashdot (or wherever you like).
>

Granted, but we *struggle* for developers on a lot of the ancillary projects;
Take phppgadmin vs. phpmyadmin for example; or take a look at some of the pl
languages that don't have a full set of capabilities or have platform issues.
We're not just in need of core developers or slashdot posters, we're still in
need of rounding out the current postgresql ecosystem and we need new blood
to do it.

> I think there are very good reasons to believe that PostgreSQL _does_
> now have a large user base.  There are some very significant
> companies -- as someone recent pointed out, one of them has a much
> larger revenue stream than Oracle Corp -- who have invested in
> PostgreSQL.  There are some companies for whom PostgreSQL is now a
> core part of their now-profitable business.  There is also an active
> user and development community.  These may be areas of relatively
> low-profile, quiet growth.  If you've ever had a lawn with creeping
> charlie in it, though, you will realise that low-profile, quiet
> growth does not mean that it is not pervasive and significant.
>

We are a large project, but as large as our user base is we still can't muster
a better answer to the "Alexa 100" question than "uh, yeah a bunch of them
use postgres but we can't tell you who except for these one guys who aren't
willing to give any details".

To paraphrase Theo Schlossnagle at OSCon, "If you want to run a TB size
database on Oracle, you pick up the phone and you can call 30 people to get
help with your problem without a lot of effort. If you want to do it on
Postgres, you just can't find that level of public experience with the
problems you're going to face."

There are a lot of spaces where postgresql is being used and/or could be used
that could certainly benefit from a larger spotlight and a larger community
pool.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:21:30PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:

> We are a large project, but as large as our user base is we still
> can't muster a better answer to the "Alexa 100" question than "uh,
> yeah a bunch of them use postgres but we can't tell you who except
> for these one guys who aren't willing to give any details".

Nothing about going to conferences and speaking in front of audiences
is going to change that.  The people who use Oracle and DB2 would
_also_ keep that quiet, if they could.  If you read the license
agreements, though, such users aren't allowed to be silent about it.
We simply don't have the leverage to out people.

> To paraphrase Theo Schlossnagle at OSCon, "If you want to run a TB size
> database on Oracle, you pick up the phone and you can call 30 people to get
> help with your problem without a lot of effort. If you want to do it on
> Postgres, you just can't find that level of public experience with the
> problems you're going to face."

But what makes you think, even for a second, that funding people to
go and talk to audiences will change that?  It will change the
profile of those individuals, of course, but it is far from plain to
me that such funds couldn't be better spent.  For instance, if the
above is the problem you're trying to solve, why not fund educational
materials that can be distributed online for people trying to run TB
sized databases?  Or find a way to build better (paying?  I dunno)
community-based support.  (Moreover, I have to say, my confidence in
the answers I get out of the Postgres community is orders of
magnitude greater than the confidence I ever had in answers given to
me by companies who were in the business of selling me more
consultation.  More is not always better.)

A
--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what
you told them to.  That actually seems sort of quaint now.
        --J.D. Baldwin

Andrew,

> For instance, if the
> above is the problem you're trying to solve, why not fund educational
> materials that can be distributed online for people trying to run TB
> sized databases?

Ooooh! oooh!  I wanna fund a professional writer ...

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

On Friday 03 November 2006 11:27, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:21:30PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:
> > We are a large project, but as large as our user base is we still
> > can't muster a better answer to the "Alexa 100" question than "uh,
> > yeah a bunch of them use postgres but we can't tell you who except
> > for these one guys who aren't willing to give any details".
>
> Nothing about going to conferences and speaking in front of audiences
> is going to change that.  The people who use Oracle and DB2 would
> _also_ keep that quiet, if they could.  If you read the license
> agreements, though, such users aren't allowed to be silent about it.
> We simply don't have the leverage to out people.
>

Going to conferences and speaking in front of audiences gives postgresql a
presence and introduces the software to more people.  The more people who
learn about the software and the larger the perceived presence we have, the
more likely we are to grow the user base.  Growing the userbase means not
only having more people who will be willing to discuss postgresql, but having
more people who are interested in talking to people about postgresql use.

> > To paraphrase Theo Schlossnagle at OSCon, "If you want to run a TB size
> > database on Oracle, you pick up the phone and you can call 30 people to
> > get help with your problem without a lot of effort. If you want to do it
> > on Postgres, you just can't find that level of public experience with the
> > problems you're going to face."
>
> But what makes you think, even for a second, that funding people to
> go and talk to audiences will change that?

As you and others have bandied about in this thread, it's all about ROI. Every
other database vendor puts effort into having a presence at various
conferences and they aren't doing it to hurt themselves.

> For instance, if the
> above is the problem you're trying to solve, why not fund educational
> materials that can be distributed online for people trying to run TB
> sized databases?

We're not going to be able to buy a solution to everyone's problem given our
current community size, and we're not going to grow the community size
without exposure and a good way to do that is by making sure we take
advantage of public events that that want to give postgresql a spotlight.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
  Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> wrote:
> On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>
> More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
> enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
> general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
> they have no interest in.

It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.

On 6 Nov 2006 at 10:46, Bruno Wolff III wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
>   Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> wrote:
> > On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
> >
> > More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
> > enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
> > general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
> > they have no interest in.
>
> It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
> the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.

That is possible.  It is not probable.  The existing culture affects
affects new users.  They tend to adapt accordingly.

--
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php

Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
>   Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> wrote:
>> On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>>
>> More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
>> enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
>> general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
>> they have no interest in.
>
> It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
> the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.

This is easily the saddest statement I have seen in this thread. Are we
so l33t that we are unwilling to help newbies come to our wonderful project?

If that is the opinion of this project, I am ready to move to another one.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

P.S. Thank goodness it is not the opinion of this project.


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

bruno@wolff.to (Bruno Wolff III) writes:
> On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
>   Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> wrote:
>> On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>>
>> More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
>> enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
>> general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
>> they have no interest in.
>
> It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
> the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.

If this was a project deploying an address card application for
[GNOME/KDE] where we were considering a new release that would make it
usable to a vast new set of clueless newbies that couldn't articulate
their problems let alone help report back issues, then that argument
could make some sense.

However, this is a *database* system, which is a "some assembly
required" sort of thing.

In order to use PostgreSQL, one of the following needs to be true:

 1.  Would-be users need to be quite capable with PostgreSQL as well as
     with languages and tools for their deployment project as they build
     PostgreSQL into their "bespoke" system.

 2.  Would-be users need to be capable enough with PostgreSQL and other
     languages and tools to port their favorite package to run atop
     PostgreSQL.

 3.  Would-be users can be completely ignorant as they run [name of
     some DB-based application] which hides them from needing to know
     anything about PostgreSQL.

In both scenarios 1 and 2, the users are anything but "helpless
clueless newbies."  And the reason to jump into category #3 is not
because we send someone out to do a talk on PostgreSQL, but rather
because there's some "killer app" that happens to embed PostgreSQL
inside it.
--
let name="cbbrowne" and tld="linuxfinances.info" in name ^ "@" ^ tld;;
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/postgresql.html
REALITY is a mescaline deficiency.

dan@langille.org ("Dan Langille") writes:
> On 6 Nov 2006 at 10:46, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
>>   Dan Langille <dan@langille.org> wrote:
>> > On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>> >
>> > More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
>> > enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
>> > general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
>> > they have no interest in.
>>
>> It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
>> the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.
>
> That is possible.  It is not probable.  The existing culture affects
> affects new users.  They tend to adapt accordingly.

There's also a vital degree of "self selection."

"Clueless new users" might get excited about adopting a new version of
a web browser or some "desktop framework" such that you get a
thundering herd of people that are essentially useless to ongoing
development.

But a database engine is much more a tool, as opposed to "end user
application."  New users may not be up to the task of making
improvements to the query optimizer, but they can't be so helpless
that they can't integrate the DB into the application for which they
intend to use it...
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://linuxdatabases.info/info/finances.html
"Please, Captain.  Not in front of the Klingons."
-- Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek V, The Final Frontier

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new
> > users, the overall effect on the project could end up being
> > negative.
>
> This is easily the saddest statement I have seen in this thread. Are
> we so l33t that we are unwilling to help newbies come to our
> wonderful project?

Thinking only in black and white categories will not enable you to make
sensible judgements.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Dan Langille wrote:
> On 6 Nov 2006 at 10:46, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 20:29:43 -0500,
> >
> > It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
> > the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.
>
> That is possible.  It is not probable.  The existing culture affects
> affects new users.  They tend to adapt accordingly.

Hmm ...

$ LC_ALL=C sdate
Mon Sep 4815 14:43:41 CLST 1993
$ man sdate

sdate(1)                   Debian manual                   sdate(1)



NAME
       sdate - never ending September date

SYNOPSIS
       sdate [-e|--epoch yyyy-mm] [-l|--lib library] [--] [command]

DESCRIPTION
       sdate runs a command in an environment wherein it wraps  the
       libc  localtime()  and  gmtime() calls such that the program
       will use the eternal September date.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

--
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

People,

> > It also means more users to support. Depending on the mix of new users,
> > the overall effect on the project could end up being negative.
>
> This is easily the saddest statement I have seen in this thread. Are we
> so l33t that we are unwilling to help newbies come to our wonderful
> project?

This is all irrelevant to the discussion.  As Peter pointed out, going to
conferences gives us new users, and joining standards bodies and benchmarks
gives us new users.   So we're not talking about dropping recruitment.

The argument presented is that we are either already attending enough OSS
conferences to cover new user recruitment from that population, OR that the
quality of users recruited from OSS conferences is relatively low (compared
to other methods), OR that OSS conferences let us recruit new users but
provide no benefits for existing users (unlike standards bodies).   Based on
one of these three arguments (take your pick) some PostgreSQL community
members think that paying for PostgreSQL speaker travel to conferences with
insufficient budget should be a very low priority (all other things being
equal) for SPI Funds.

So, can we move this discussion back on-topic?

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> I think that Peter has a point here ... both standards bodies and OSS
> conferences attract new users.  The question is what kind of new users
> we want to attract.  That is, while PostgreSQL can always use more
> Perl hackers and OSS-CRMs supporting/using our database, it's probably
> more important to attract the interest of bank CTOs and major
> manufacturer procurement managers.  We want to be evaluated as an
> enterprise RDBMS before an open source RDBMS.  So I can see that.
>
> However, I'll stand my evaluation that we need to work on "bang for
> the buck" basis.  Some of these standards bodies and trade groups can
> absorb enormous amounts of money while delivering questionable
> benefits (having been to TPC meetings, the TPC falls into this class
> in my mind) wheras others are more modest and provide immediate
> opportunities.  So I might put the latter ahead of flying David to
> Brazil, but not the former.
Does Sun, by any chance, plan on getting into TPC for Sun Supported
PostgreSQL?  Alternately, perhaps one of the companies that has a
PostgreSQL based product would be willing to foot the bill so that the
community could have some nifty benchmarks...  I would think that they
could see the ROI - just by the ability to better classify PostgreSQL
among the bigger boys.  I would think that a number of corporations with
PostgreSQL based products could benefit (from a sales perspective) from
the TPC benchmarks...especially when they come at such a low cost to
them.  I also think that they could provide some of the manpower
required for these benchmarks....

--
Chander Ganesan
The Open Technology Group
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999
http://www.otg-nc.com

Chander,

> Does Sun, by any chance, plan on getting into TPC for Sun Supported
> PostgreSQL?

I think that you can understand that even if we were working on one, I
couldn't talk about it on a publically archived list.  TPC is *very*
political.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Chander,
>
>
>> Does Sun, by any chance, plan on getting into TPC for Sun Supported
>> PostgreSQL?
>>
>
> I think that you can understand that even if we were working on one, I
> couldn't talk about it on a publically archived list.  TPC is *very*
> political.
>
Makes sense..but it never hurts to ask. ;-)   The question still stands,
might some of the corporates that are PostgreSQL based be interested in
footing the community bill (an $18,500 savings!) and sending a person to
the meetings or run the benchmarks (to represent the community) for the
ability to have some PostgreSQL benchmarks.  I get the impression that
participation isn't as important as the benchmarks...so they could skip
the meetings and just do the benchmarks... ;-)

--
Chander Ganesan
The Open Technology Group
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999
http://www.otg-nc.com

> Does Sun, by any chance, plan on getting into TPC for Sun Supported
> PostgreSQL?  Alternately, perhaps one of the companies that has a
> PostgreSQL based product would be willing to foot the bill so that the
> community could have some nifty benchmarks...  I would think that they
> could see the ROI - just by the ability to better classify PostgreSQL
> among the bigger boys.  I would think that a number of corporations with

Well as JoshB said, SPI could be a member for about 1500 bucks. I don't
think TPC testing is much of the issue. CMD would be willing to sponsor
pure PostgreSQL TPC testing if done through SPI.



Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



> PostgreSQL based products could benefit (from a sales perspective) from
> the TPC benchmarks...especially when they come at such a low cost to
> them.  I also think that they could provide some of the manpower
> required for these benchmarks....
>


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Does Sun, by any chance, plan on getting into TPC for Sun Supported
PostgreSQL?  Alternately, perhaps one of the companies that has a
PostgreSQL based product would be willing to foot the bill so that the
community could have some nifty benchmarks...  I would think that they
could see the ROI - just by the ability to better classify PostgreSQL
among the bigger boys.  I would think that a number of corporations with   

Well as JoshB said, SPI could be a member for about 1500 bucks. I don't
think TPC testing is much of the issue. CMD would be willing to sponsor
pure PostgreSQL TPC testing if done through SPI.
 

Hmm...I had the (perhaps mistaken) impression that the value in TPC is not so much in the meetings (which are apparently, highly political ;-) ), but rather in the benchmarks and being able to be favorably compared to other TPC benchmarked databases...no?

Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
Phone: 877-258-8987/919-463-0999

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


 

PostgreSQL based products could benefit (from a sales perspective) from
the TPC benchmarks...especially when they come at such a low cost to
them.  I also think that they could provide some of the manpower
required for these benchmarks....
   

On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 11:06:29AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> provide no benefits for existing users (unlike standards bodies).   Based on
> one of these three arguments (take your pick) some PostgreSQL community
> members think that paying for PostgreSQL speaker travel to conferences with
> insufficient budget should be a very low priority (all other things being
> equal) for SPI Funds.

There's another item worth keeping in mind here.  What I'm arguing is
the above, and also that getting funds to pay for individuals' travel
might be a tough row to hoe.  If I'm a current user, what value is
there in it for me to fund various people to go off to conferences?
Whereas, to the extent it is valuable to me to make the community
product and services better, I have a reason to fund that, so I will
donate.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
"The year's penultimate month" is not in truth a good way of saying
November.
        --H.W. Fowler

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 11:06:29AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
>> provide no benefits for existing users (unlike standards bodies).   Based on
>> one of these three arguments (take your pick) some PostgreSQL community
>> members think that paying for PostgreSQL speaker travel to conferences with
>> insufficient budget should be a very low priority (all other things being
>> equal) for SPI Funds.
>
> There's another item worth keeping in mind here.  What I'm arguing is
> the above, and also that getting funds to pay for individuals' travel
> might be a tough row to hoe.  If I'm a current user, what value is
> there in it for me to fund various people to go off to conferences?

Well IMHO we should not be spending dollars on people going to conferences.

That is vastly different than sponsoring a *speaker* for a conference
that is going to be speaking on PostgreSQL and having a requirement to
provide all materials used in the presentation back to the community.

Secondly, I believe that it is vitally important for us to continue to
have booths at shows. I also feel that it important for our marketing
materials to begin to take on a more cohesive and professional look to them.

I did mention my second point in my call for donations and we have
received a healthy dose of donations over the last two weeks.


> Whereas, to the extent it is valuable to me to make the community
> product and services better, I have a reason to fund that, so I will
> donate.

Agreed and I do think that we need to pay special attention to these
areas. Without infrastructure, we aren't much :)

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake




--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

On 11/2/06, Darcy Buskermolen <darcyb@commandprompt.com> wrote:
> > > We don't even have to win the TPC benchmarks- simply competing puts
> > > postgres in a different category.
> >
> > I agree with this point.
> >
> > And, additionally, this benchmarks could help the developers to improve
> > PostgreSQL specifically in those areas where it does not win yet.
>
> Saying that we need to join TCP to be able to improve PostgreSQL is not
> correct, we have access to a lot of "TPC like" tests
> http://pgfoundry.org/projects/tpc-w-php for example, but because it's not an
> official TPC test we can't announce it's results with any marketing weight.
> Al that TPC provides us is some official marketing buzzwords and industry

Which could very well result in expanded userbase.

A simple example: company which does not yet use PostgreSQL, and
someone suggests running some DB on PostgreSQL instead of
<some other DB>.  If it involves some mission critical DB, this will be
most likely refused, because the PostgreSQL is not known to them and
untested.  If it is some expendable DB, our open source competitors
will be probably at least match us performance wise, and so there is
little reason to switch to PostgreSQL.  And now, having Core members
on conferences won't change that, I'm afraid. Having TPC membership
and benchmarks gives leverage (buzzwordish, but still) for convincing
sceptics into at least fully testing PostgreSQL. The "TPC-like" tests
are useless in such "political" discussions.

Then, having successfully deployed PostgreSQL in some company,
some employees will be forced to learn and to use PostgreSQL.
Some of them will like it, some even will start advocating for it.
But the first installation has to be made somehow. Sun's support
for PostgreSQL certainly helps in that area -- if you say, Hey, Sun
supports it, it's got to be worth a try, chances are people will listen
to you. TPC membership would be a similar argument, I think.

Having core members presenting in all over the Globe won't be much
help in that area.  It will ceratinly help, and is needed also, but is more
of "for the future development" kind.

By the way, it could be worth to think about planning travel few months
before.  For instance -- if planned early enough using, traveling using
European budget lines a SkyEurope could cost aroung $50 (usually less)
per flight.  When carefully planned a person might visit few conferences
and also some "ad hoc" created meetings with local OS groups.  This
would have both "bang for buck", be very tireing, and intereting (if one
likes to travel) at the same time.  Having you guys flown over from the
US can be expensive (and is even more a reason for throwing you all
over the Europe ;))

> babble.  Also the thought of altering PG in ways to make it perform better
> specificaly for specific benchmarks is not what we should be throwing funds
> or even more importantly developer time at.

I very much doubt any PG developer would agree on such "benchmark tuning".
Yet having PostgreSQL perform particulary badly at some benchmark is
a hint that such area needs addressing.  Take a look at OSDL labs benchmarks,
they are really help identifying and eliminating bottlenecks.

   Regards,
       Dawid

On Tuesday 07 November 2006 20:52, Dawid Kuroczko wrote:
> On 11/2/06, Darcy Buskermolen <darcyb@commandprompt.com> wrote:
> > > > We don't even have to win the TPC benchmarks- simply competing puts
> > > > postgres in a different category.
> > >
> > > I agree with this point.
> > >
> > > And, additionally, this benchmarks could help the developers to improve
> > > PostgreSQL specifically in those areas where it does not win yet.
> >
> > Saying that we need to join TCP to be able to improve PostgreSQL is not
> > correct, we have access to a lot of "TPC like" tests
> > http://pgfoundry.org/projects/tpc-w-php for example, but because it's not
> > an official TPC test we can't announce it's results with any marketing
> > weight. Al that TPC provides us is some official marketing buzzwords and
> > industry
>
> Which could very well result in expanded userbase.
>
> A simple example: company which does not yet use PostgreSQL, and
> someone suggests running some DB on PostgreSQL instead of
> <some other DB>.  If it involves some mission critical DB, this will be
> most likely refused, because the PostgreSQL is not known to them and
> untested.  If it is some expendable DB, our open source competitors
> will be probably at least match us performance wise, and so there is
> little reason to switch to PostgreSQL.  And now, having Core members
> on conferences won't change that, I'm afraid.

Really?  Your first argument was that PostgreSQL would not be accepted because
it was not known to them.  Well, presenting at conferences get this project
exposure, both to developers and to executives, depending on the conference.
Imagine that the largest software conference in Brazil asks the project if
someone cancome to their country to give a keynote speech.  Do you really
want to turn down that exposure?  Do you want to not have a booth at a
conference like the recent one in Germany where there are 50,000 attendees,
and you know they are going to go to booths for a half dozen other database
groups?

> Having TPC membership
> and benchmarks gives leverage (buzzwordish, but still) for convincing
> sceptics into at least fully testing PostgreSQL. The "TPC-like" tests
> are useless in such "political" discussions.
>

Does it?  Have you looked at a TPC benchmark, or the published results? There
is *no way* we can top the performance metrics that are put out by folks like
Oracle if for no other reason than the systems they run the test on are
completely unrealistic.  And we cannot run our own TPC benchmarks with other
database software on a standardized hardware because their software licenses
will not allow it.  And even if we could of course people would dismiss it as
biased testing.

> Then, having successfully deployed PostgreSQL in some company,
> some employees will be forced to learn and to use PostgreSQL.
> Some of them will like it, some even will start advocating for it.
> But the first installation has to be made somehow. Sun's support
> for PostgreSQL certainly helps in that area -- if you say, Hey, Sun
> supports it, it's got to be worth a try, chances are people will listen
> to you. TPC membership would be a similar argument, I think.
>

Except that this ignores all of the market research that open source is
traditionally implemented in companies from the ground up rather than from
the top down.

> Having core members presenting in all over the Globe won't be much
> help in that area.  It will ceratinly help, and is needed also, but is more
> of "for the future development" kind.
>
> By the way, it could be worth to think about planning travel few months
> before.  For instance -- if planned early enough using, traveling using
> European budget lines a SkyEurope could cost aroung $50 (usually less)
> per flight.  When carefully planned a person might visit few conferences
> and also some "ad hoc" created meetings with local OS groups.  This
> would have both "bang for buck", be very tireing, and intereting (if one
> likes to travel) at the same time.  Having you guys flown over from the
> US can be expensive (and is even more a reason for throwing you all
> over the Europe ;))
>

If we were going to do that, yes, it would make sense to do it that way, but I
think the current feeling is that people should be kept as local as possible;
ie. flying someone over from the U.S. to Europe on our own dime makes little
sense when there are a lot of solid contributors in Europe already.

> > babble.  Also the thought of altering PG in ways to make it perform
> > better specificaly for specific benchmarks is not what we should be
> > throwing funds or even more importantly developer time at.
>
> I very much doubt any PG developer would agree on such "benchmark tuning".
> Yet having PostgreSQL perform particulary badly at some benchmark is
> a hint that such area needs addressing.  Take a look at OSDL labs
> benchmarks, they are really help identifying and eliminating bottlenecks.
>

Between OSDL and that Sun already has a TPC membership, I think a pint needs
to be made that benchmarks are resources that can be obtained in other ways.
My observation is that some of the newer companies like EnterpriseDB are very
good when it comes to working with the community donating and coordinating
developer resources, but seem less interested in providing community members
to "stump" for PostgreSQL as PostgreSQL community members.  I'm comfortable
with that, but we still need to provide "face time" as a project.

On a side note, this discussion seems to be turning into a TPC vs. Speakers
debate, which is unfortunate, as there are certainly other items that should
be in a discussion of things to spend money on, like software certifications
and standards processes, which so far have pretty much been ignored.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert,

> On a side note, this discussion seems to be turning into a TPC vs. Speakers
> debate, which is unfortunate, as there are certainly other items that
> should be in a discussion of things to spend money on, like software
> certifications and standards processes, which so far have pretty much been
> ignored.

Sorry, blame my choice of example.

To refresh, here's the list of everything we might want to spend money on:

1. PostgreSQL.org infrastructure (servers, bandwidth, sysadmins, SSL, etc.)
    (unlikely to need money, but if it does, the highest priority)

2.a. Speaker travel to key conferences.
2.b. Membership and participation in standards and benchmark bodies.
2.c. Developer tools (hardware & software)
2.d. Performance/testing tools (mostly hardware & hosting)
2.e. Development of PostgreSQL code
2.f. Porting other OSS applications to PostgreSQL
2.g. Printing Marketing collateral for PostgreSQL (CDs, flyers, case studies)
2.h. Developing marketing collateral for PostgreSQL (hired writer)
2.i. Generally booth duty expenses for conferences (food, signs, internet,
etc.)

3. Commercial booths/pavillions at large conferences
   (only if we have money coming out our ears)

I *think* everyone is in agreement on (1) and (3).   Where people are arguing
is for 2.a-i, where people want to set some priorities.

Personally, I don't think that we can set any meaningful priorities for
categories of expenses in the abstract, which is why I'm pushing a "bang for
the buck" evaluation.  However, a couple of people have pointed out that
we're still vague on what constitutes "bang".  For example, what are our
comparative criteria for:

a) reaching potential new users at OSS conferences?
b) reaching potential new users in South America, Africa and Asia?
c) reaching "suits"?
d) reaching governments?
e) developing new PostgreSQL features?
f) improving standards compliance and certifications?
g) improving performance?
h) adding to the number of PostgreSQL OSS user applications?

If we have to compare, for example, sending David Fetter to a Venezualan
conference sponsored by the government where he will speak to an audience of
300 people against offering a prize to Joomla developers who port add-ins to
PostgreSQL, which "bang" is bigger?

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
>
> To refresh, here's the list of everything we might want to spend money on:
>
> 1. PostgreSQL.org infrastructure (servers, bandwidth, sysadmins, SSL, etc.)
>     (unlikely to need money, but if it does, the highest priority)

There's one area regarding postgresql.org infrastructure that I think
we could enhance that would benefit the community pretty greatly.

Could the PostgreSQL infrastructure itself serve as an example of
best practices and/or interesting use of PostgreSQL --- and have
the source for the apps poswering postgresql.org be available on
pgfoundry/gborg?

I can think of a couple examples:
 * Is search on the postgresql web site or docs or mailing list   archives powered by tsearch2 or some sgml indexing
feature  or some other postgresql cool feature I don't know about?   Could it be?  Could we see how it's done?  I think
thedocs would   be especially interesting if it indexes the sgml; and I think   the mailing list archives are a pretty
niceexample of a fairly   large scale search database. 
   I've been asked why PostgreSQL.org's search apparently uses   ASPSeek and ASPSeek's docs claim the supported
databaseare   "it can be mysql or oracle8 for now."  (Though I've been told   in postgresql.org's case it's actually
backedby PG, that's   not obvious anywhere.) 
 * I seem to recall a developer map somewhere. Was it generated   by PostGIS?  If not, note that pretty impressive maps
can  be generated from PostgreSQL/PostGIS like the links below [1,2,3]   All of these are dynamically generated (change
themapxy or   scale parameters if you don't believe me) from a 90GB postgresql   database of individual road segments;
andit works pretty well   and IMHO would make a pretty nice demo and example of how to   use that feature? 
 * Is the postgresql.org adserver powered by postgresql?  That   too would be interesting to many small site webmasters
if  the source were available. 
 * Is postgresql.org itself a database-backed web site?  How   about showing the source for that on pgfoundry as an
exampleweb site? 

I'm sure there are many other areas that might be interesting; but
does the general idea sound reasonable -- fund using the infrastructure
to show rather than just tell about how postgresql can be used?



[1,2,3] (Some nice maps dynamically generated directly from a postgresql
database that I think could turn into a nice example on the web site)
[1] http://64.127.105.202/maps/mapserv?mapxy=-122.39+37.79&scale=10000&layer=land&layer=roads&map=cp.map&mode=map
[2] http://64.127.105.202/maps/mapserv?mapxy=-122.39+37.79&scale=100000&layer=land&layer=roads&map=cp.map&mode=map
[3] http://64.127.105.202/maps/mapserv?mapxy=-122.39+37.79&scale=1000000&layer=land&layer=roads&map=cp.map&mode=map


>
> 2.a. Speaker travel to key conferences.
> 2.b. Membership and participation in standards and benchmark bodies.
> 2.c. Developer tools (hardware & software)
> 2.d. Performance/testing tools (mostly hardware & hosting)
> 2.e. Development of PostgreSQL code
> 2.f. Porting other OSS applications to PostgreSQL
> 2.g. Printing Marketing collateral for PostgreSQL (CDs, flyers, case studies)
> 2.h. Developing marketing collateral for PostgreSQL (hired writer)
> 2.i. Generally booth duty expenses for conferences (food, signs, internet,
> etc.)
>
> 3. Commercial booths/pavillions at large conferences
>    (only if we have money coming out our ears)
>
> I *think* everyone is in agreement on (1) and (3).   Where people are arguing
> is for 2.a-i, where people want to set some priorities.
>
> Personally, I don't think that we can set any meaningful priorities for
> categories of expenses in the abstract, which is why I'm pushing a "bang for
> the buck" evaluation.  However, a couple of people have pointed out that
> we're still vague on what constitutes "bang".  For example, what are our
> comparative criteria for:
>
> a) reaching potential new users at OSS conferences?
> b) reaching potential new users in South America, Africa and Asia?
> c) reaching "suits"?
> d) reaching governments?
> e) developing new PostgreSQL features?
> f) improving standards compliance and certifications?
> g) improving performance?
> h) adding to the number of PostgreSQL OSS user applications?
>
> If we have to compare, for example, sending David Fetter to a Venezualan
> conference sponsored by the government where he will speak to an audience of
> 300 people against offering a prize to Joomla developers who port add-ins to
> PostgreSQL, which "bang" is bigger?
>

> > To refresh, here's the list of everything we might want to
> spend money on:
> >
> > 1. PostgreSQL.org infrastructure (servers, bandwidth,
> sysadmins, SSL, etc.)
> >     (unlikely to need money, but if it does, the highest priority)
>
> There's one area regarding postgresql.org infrastructure that
> I think we could enhance that would benefit the community
> pretty greatly.
>
> Could the PostgreSQL infrastructure itself serve as an
> example of best practices and/or interesting use of
> PostgreSQL --- and have the source for the apps poswering
> postgresql.org be available on pgfoundry/gborg?
>
> I can think of a couple examples:
>
>   * Is search on the postgresql web site or docs or mailing list
>     archives powered by tsearch2 or some sgml indexing feature
>     or some other postgresql cool feature I don't know about?
>     Could it be?  Could we see how it's done?  I think the docs would
>     be especially interesting if it indexes the sgml; and I think
>     the mailing list archives are a pretty nice example of a fairly
>     large scale search database.

This is being worked on right now.


>     I've been asked why PostgreSQL.org's search apparently uses
>     ASPSeek and ASPSeek's docs claim the supported database are
>     "it can be mysql or oracle8 for now."  (Though I've been told
>     in postgresql.org's case it's actually backed by PG, that's
>     not obvious anywhere.)

We have a special version of ASPSeek that works with Pg. Unfortunatly
the upstream maintainers didn't want our patches, if I understodd the
situation right. One of the reasons we are migrating off it.

>   * I seem to recall a developer map somewhere. Was it generated
>     by PostGIS?  If not, note that pretty impressive maps can
>     be generated from PostgreSQL/PostGIS like the links below [1,2,3]
>     All of these are dynamically generated (change the mapxy or
>     scale parameters if you don't believe me) from a 90GB postgresql
>     database of individual road segments; and it works pretty well
>     and IMHO would make a pretty nice demo and example of how to
>     use that feature?

That could be a nice demo, yes.


>   * Is the postgresql.org adserver powered by postgresql?  That
>     too would be interesting to many small site webmasters if
>     the source were available.

I don't know. It would IMHO be much better to get rid of the ads and use
whatever little funding needed to replace that.


>   * Is postgresql.org itself a database-backed web site?  How
>     about showing the source for that on pgfoundry as an
>     example web site?

It is, but it uses a reasonably advanced static mirroring system. The
source is on gborg, project "pgweb".


//Magnus

> I can think of a couple examples:
>
>   * Is search on the postgresql web site or docs or mailing list
>     archives powered by tsearch2 or some sgml indexing feature
>     or some other postgresql cool feature I don't know about?
>     Could it be?  Could we see how it's done?  I think the docs would
>     be especially interesting if it indexes the sgml; and I think
>     the mailing list archives are a pretty nice example of a fairly
>     large scale search database.

This is something that is kind of being worked on right now. You will be
able to submit a keyword that will return docs based on the keyword.
Versus a fuzzy search.


>
>     I've been asked why PostgreSQL.org's search apparently uses
>     ASPSeek and ASPSeek's docs claim the supported database are
>     "it can be mysql or oracle8 for now."  (Though I've been told
>     in postgresql.org's case it's actually backed by PG, that's
>     not obvious anywhere.)

Yes it is using PostgreSQL, but we are moving to 8.2 with PHP +
GIN/Tsearch to do our new search engine.

>
>   * I seem to recall a developer map somewhere. Was it generated
>     by PostGIS?  If not, note that pretty impressive maps can
>     be generated from PostgreSQL/PostGIS like the links below [1,2,3]
>     All of these are dynamically generated (change the mapxy or
>     scale parameters if you don't believe me) from a 90GB postgresql
>     database of individual road segments; and it works pretty well
>     and IMHO would make a pretty nice demo and example of how to
>     use that feature?

That would be very, very cool. To automatically generate maps of all the
contributors. You up for the task, we could use a volunteer :) (never
suggest unless you can do ;))


>
>   * Is the postgresql.org adserver powered by postgresql?  That
>     too would be interesting to many small site webmasters if
>     the source were available.

This is going away entirely soon.

>
>   * Is postgresql.org itself a database-backed web site?  How
>     about showing the source for that on pgfoundry as an
>     example web site?

The entire PostgreSQL -WWW project can be downloaded now from gborg.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake


--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Joshua D. Drake ha scritto:
>>   * Is the postgresql.org adserver powered by postgresql?  That
>>     too would be interesting to many small site webmasters if
>>     the source were available.
>
> This is going away entirely soon.

I'm sorry to hear this... anyway I replaced phpAdsNew with phpPgAds a
few months ago, and now ads.hub.org is PostgreSQL powered.


Best regards
--
Matteo Beccati
http://phpadsnew.com
http://phppgads.com

On 11/8/06, Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Really?  Your first argument was that PostgreSQL would not be accepted because
> it was not known to them.  Well, presenting at conferences get this project
> exposure, both to developers and to executives, depending on the conference.
> Imagine that the largest software conference in Brazil asks the project if
> someone cancome to their country to give a keynote speech.  Do you really
> want to turn down that exposure?  Do you want to not have a booth at a
> conference like the recent one in Germany where there are 50,000 attendees,
> and you know they are going to go to booths for a half dozen other database
> groups?

I didn't write anywhere that I don't want to have a booth. Booth will certainly
attract new people to PostgreSQL and is certainly helpful to the community.
My point was rather about situation where some other OS DB is used, and
there's not much traction towards PostgreSQL.  Booths prove that PostgreSQL
is used and developed, but... well, some other OS DB also is (hence, no
traction).  Having PostgreSQL in different league would help use both of
these products at things they are best at.  And I feel, TPC gives here
more leverage.

This is a specific case.  I don't intend to prove that it is generally better.
I think expanding userbase is very important, and good to have PostgreSQL's
presence as wide as possible.  I only wanted to state, that I know
environments where convention-presence-or-not, other DB is "good enough",
and some other forms of presence might be more helpful.

> > Having TPC membership
> > and benchmarks gives leverage (buzzwordish, but still) for convincing
> > sceptics into at least fully testing PostgreSQL. The "TPC-like" tests
> > are useless in such "political" discussions.
> Does it?  Have you looked at a TPC benchmark, or the published results? There
> is *no way* we can top the performance metrics that are put out by folks like
> Oracle if for no other reason than the systems they run the test on are
> completely unrealistic.  And we cannot run our own TPC benchmarks with other
> database software on a standardized hardware because their software licenses
> will not allow it.  And even if we could of course people would dismiss it as
> biased testing.

There is a race called Dakar-Rally.  It involves cars racing in harsh
environment (sand, rocks, mud, etc.).  From time to time some
car manufacturer will put there one of their "standard model" of
a car, to proove their endurance, and to use the race as a testing
ground for it.  Why do they do that?  They have no chance of
winning, and non-zero probability that the race will be too hard
for a "regular" car.  I see a parallel here.

> Except that this ignores all of the market research that open source is
> traditionally implemented in companies from the ground up rather than from
> the top down.

Think of not a startup company which is doing a research right now,
but rather a company that has gone through such research some
time ago and made its choices.  How would you argument making
fundamental change in DB backend now?  Sun's support helps here,
both to down and ground up.

> If we were going to do that, yes, it would make sense to do it that way, but I
> think the current feeling is that people should be kept as local as possible;
> ie. flying someone over from the U.S. to Europe on our own dime makes little
> sense when there are a lot of solid contributors in Europe already.

Totally agree.  But since earlier examples involved flying Asia, Middle
East and Europe, I just couldn't resist suggesting it.

> On a side note, this discussion seems to be turning into a TPC vs. Speakers
> debate, which is unfortunate, as there are certainly other items that should
> be in a discussion of things to spend money on, like software certifications
> and standards processes, which so far have pretty much been ignored.

It was not my intention.  My point was that TPC might not be necesarilly
worthless.

   Regards,
       Dawid

On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 10:53:16AM +0100, Michael Meskes wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 04:27:13PM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> > > It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> > > funding developers.
> >
> > The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
> > arrange.
> > ...
>
> How about a bounty system, where you describe work to be done and give a
> fixed price or the implementation and people can apply for this job?

Maybe my glasses are especially rose-colored, but I think there's
plenty-enough core developers that are employed by commercial PostgreSQL
companies so that anyone who wants to fund development of a specific
feature can do so.
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:21:30PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:
> Granted, but we *struggle* for developers on a lot of the ancillary projects;
> Take phppgadmin vs. phpmyadmin for example; or take a look at some of the pl
> languages that don't have a full set of capabilities or have platform issues.
> We're not just in need of core developers or slashdot posters, we're still in
> need of rounding out the current postgresql ecosystem and we need new blood
> to do it.

Interesting... I've been pretty active in the community for a number of
years, but I can only think of 2 or 3 cases where projects asked folks
for help.

Projects that are looking for help should really post entries at
http://pgfoundry.org/people/
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 04:42:56PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Adrian,
>
> > 2) My thoughts. I am writing this as an end user and as a member of the
> > Organizing committee of LinuxFest NW  (linuxfestnorthwest.org/). Last
> > year Jim Nasby spoke at LFNW, funded by his employer Pervasive. He was
> > the lone Postgres speaker in a conference that had a team of people from
> > MySQL and another team from Oracle. Oracle and MySQL are planning on
> > returning, Pervasive is out of the Postgres business. In my role as
> > organizer I would like to see Postgres represented, but money is short.
>
> Actually, we have a bunch of community in Seattle and in British
> Columbia ... how far is Bellingham?

FWIW, LFNW solicited folks on one of the lists (maybe this one?) and no
one else was interested or available (Josh D. was already committed to
something else).

I'd happily speak again next year, assuming that airfare is covered.
EnterpriseDB might cover it, but to be blunt, I don't think there's a
lot of commercial incentive for them to do so. My impression of LFNW is
that it was mostly folks who wouldn't pay for support, so if my travel
was covered it would essentially be a donation to the community. Which
rounds back to the question of how much importance the community places
on these things.

Personally, I think it would be great if we encouraged local users to go
and speak at these smaller conferences, especially because they are much
more likely to strike a chord with the attendees. Sure I could talk
about tuning a PostgreSQL database running on a quad opteron and a 500GB
storage array, but what's that mean to an audience that is largely
comprised of people who are just getting their feet wet in linux and
databases?

Part of encouraging that local participation is offering people who are
willing to talk some money to cover their expenses. The mileage charge
for someone 100 miles away to drive to LFNW would be about $80 (BTW, if
someone wants to do that and the FundMeister doesn't want to pay, I'll
foot the bill myself).

BTW, speaking of representation from the "competition", there were two
MySQL talks at LFNW, and a 2+ hour session on Oracle (equivalent to 2
talks). I think it would be great if people talked about how they're
using PostgreSQL on small projects that relate to what LFNW attendees
are likely to be doing.
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 10:52:32AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> the buck" evaluation.  However, a couple of people have pointed out that
> we're still vague on what constitutes "bang".  For example, what are our

I'm tempted to say "bang on".  But I'll resist temptation.

I would like to suggest that we are converging on something like the
following principles, which can guide case-by-case answers:

* we want to build a strong user base
    - that may not always entail adding every possible user

* a mix of "small/new market" and "traditional suit enterprise"
    targets is desirable
    - such an approach builds strength through diversity

* "industry" types of work, such as standards bodies and
    techno-political organisation work, is of some degree of
    importance.
    - the cost of being involved (in time and travel as well as
        money) should be a significant, but non-determinant,
        factor here

Note that, among other properties, this outline entails that we
evaluate the third request to speak to emerging-community-meeting in
a given year _differently_ than the first such request.  I think
that's a feature, not a bug, but I'm happy to hear alternative views.

Do these seem like a reasonable outline of principles on which we
could make case-by-case determinations?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The plural of anecdote is not data.
        --Roger Brinner

> Joshua D. Drake ha scritto:
> >>   * Is the postgresql.org adserver powered by postgresql?  That
> >>     too would be interesting to many small site webmasters if
> >>     the source were available.
> >
> > This is going away entirely soon.
>
> I'm sorry to hear this... anyway I replaced phpAdsNew with
> phpPgAds a few months ago, and now ads.hub.org is PostgreSQL powered.

What Josh means is that we'll be taking the ads off www.postgresql.org,
not that phpPgAds will go away as a product. AFAIK, that is :)

//Magnus

> > Granted, but we *struggle* for developers on a lot of the ancillary
> > projects; Take phppgadmin vs. phpmyadmin for example; or
> take a look
> > at some of the pl languages that don't have a full set of
> capabilities or have platform issues.
> > We're not just in need of core developers or slashdot
> posters, we're
> > still in need of rounding out the current postgresql
> ecosystem and we need new blood
> > to do it.
>
> Interesting... I've been pretty active in the community for a
> number of years, but I can only think of 2 or 3 cases where
> projects asked folks for help.


Seriously, it shouldn't be *that* hard to find someone to help out with
phpPgAdmin. There are a lot more people capable of writing a PHP webapp
than working on teh PostgreSQL optimizer. (Myself, for example, but I
don't have time to help out with this one - just an example). Perhaps
you should just post something on the frontpage of the phppgadmin page?

PLs are probably more difficult.


> Projects that are looking for help should really post entries
> at http://pgfoundry.org/people/

Given that there is nothing there, obviouslyi nobody knows how to use
it. You both need people posting and people reading to make that
actually work... IOh, and there isn't even a category for "developer"
:-)

//Magnus

Magnus Hagander ha scritto:
> What Josh means is that we'll be taking the ads off www.postgresql.org,
> not that phpPgAds will go away as a product. AFAIK, that is :)

Yes, I understand.

While you may not have the need to get paying advertisers, I feel that
rotating ads of open source projects which use pgsql was an interesting
idea, even though it was partly abandoned during the site restyle.

There is a fairly good number of monthly ad impressions (without banners
on the home page) and it's just a pity to avoid using them.


Best regards
--
Matteo Beccati
http://phpadsnew.com
http://phppgads.com

Magnus Hagander wrote:
> Seriously, it shouldn't be *that* hard to find someone to help out with
> phpPgAdmin. There are a lot more people capable of writing a PHP webapp
> than working on teh PostgreSQL optimizer. (Myself, for example, but I
> don't have time to help out with this one - just an example). Perhaps
> you should just post something on the frontpage of the phppgadmin page?

Admin tools are boring and unattractive to developers - you should know
that; look how long it took for me to persuade you to work on pgAdmin.

Regards, Dave.

> > Seriously, it shouldn't be *that* hard to find someone to help out
> > with phpPgAdmin. There are a lot more people capable of
> writing a PHP
> > webapp than working on teh PostgreSQL optimizer. (Myself,
> for example,
> > but I don't have time to help out with this one - just an example).
> > Perhaps you should just post something on the frontpage of
> the phppgadmin page?
>
> Admin tools are boring and unattractive to developers - you
> should know that; look how long it took for me to persuade
> you to work on pgAdmin.

Yes. But you managed eventually :)
And really, wxWidgets is also a lot harder than most PHP stuff. Just
count the bugs I've added to pgAdmin.

Oh, and also compare it to how much less time it took you to convince me
to work on the PHP stuff for the website...

//Magnus

Magnus Hagander wrote:
>>> Seriously, it shouldn't be *that* hard to find someone to help out
>>> with phpPgAdmin. There are a lot more people capable of
>> writing a PHP
>>> webapp than working on teh PostgreSQL optimizer. (Myself,
>> for example,
>>> but I don't have time to help out with this one - just an example).
>>> Perhaps you should just post something on the frontpage of
>> the phppgadmin page?
>>
>> Admin tools are boring and unattractive to developers - you
>> should know that; look how long it took for me to persuade
>> you to work on pgAdmin.
>
> Yes. But you managed eventually :)
> And really, wxWidgets is also a lot harder than most PHP stuff. Just
> count the bugs I've added to pgAdmin.

Yeah - I nailed a couple more of them the other night. Flippin'
format_type patch <grrr>

> Oh, and also compare it to how much less time it took you to convince me
> to work on the PHP stuff for the website...

I don't think that's so much a language thing - the website is just a
heck of a lot more simple the pgAdmin or phpPgAdmin. That said though, I
can understand that new programmer may be more at ease with PHP than C++.

/D

On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 01:31 -0600, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 10:53:16AM +0100, Michael Meskes wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 04:27:13PM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> > > > It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> > > > funding developers.
> > >
> > > The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
> > > arrange.
> > > ...
> >
> > How about a bounty system, where you describe work to be done and give a
> > fixed price or the implementation and people can apply for this job?
>
> Maybe my glasses are especially rose-colored, but I think there's
> plenty-enough core developers that are employed by commercial PostgreSQL
> companies so that anyone who wants to fund development of a specific
> feature can do so.

Sure, but why shouldn't we help independent developers also contribute
who can?

Joshua D. Drake

--

      === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive  PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
             http://www.commandprompt.com/

Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Matteo,

> While you may not have the need to get paying advertisers, I feel that
> rotating ads of open source projects which use pgsql was an interesting
> idea, even though it was partly abandoned during the site restyle.
>
> There is a fairly good number of monthly ad impressions (without banners
> on the home page) and it's just a pity to avoid using them.

Hmmm ... we can re-discuss this.  The reason for removing them is that
*paid* ads detract from our image as a serious, well supported, mature
OSS project.  Look for other major OSS projects who run paid ads on
their home page ... there aren't any.

Now, if we wanted to make those ads exclusively for PG-supporting OSS
projects and for major donors to postgresql.org (and I'm talking
$10,000+ per year here) then it might be worth revisiting.

What do people think?

--Josh

All,

OK, so apparently nobody else cares about what we use the SPI money for.
Good to know ...

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> OK, so apparently nobody else cares about what we use the SPI money for.
> Good to know ...

I have been silent because the stuff proposed so far is very reasonable,
not because I don't care.  If you were to propose fighting terrorism or
growing rainforests I would oppose that.

--
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro,

> I have been silent because the stuff proposed so far is very reasonable,
> not because I don't care.  If you were to propose fighting terrorism or
> growing rainforests I would oppose that.
>

Darn!  ;-)

--Josh

Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
> On Thursday 26 October 2006 16:26, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> > Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> > > I appreciate the views of those who are part of the funds group, and
> > > I think it's excellent that they make their views known here, too.
> > > But I'm a little concerned that the _only_ people we've heard from so
> > > far are people who will be held responsible for disbursing the money.
> > > Is no-one else in the community interested in this issue?
> >
> > It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> > funding developers.
>
> I'd rather see it fund specific features rather than specific developers. In
> the same way I think it would be acceptable for developers to make a propsal
> to request funds to deal with specific todo's.

FYI, I am trying to use the EnterpriseDB USD $25k fund to fund features.

--
  Bruce Momjian   bruce@momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB    http://www.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 08:09:03AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 01:31 -0600, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 29, 2006 at 10:53:16AM +0100, Michael Meskes wrote:
> > > On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 04:27:13PM -0400, Chris Browne wrote:
> > > > > It surprised me to notice that there appears to be no interest in
> > > > > funding developers.
> > > >
> > > > The trouble with that is that it's a much "lumpier" thing to try to
> > > > arrange.
> > > > ...
> > >
> > > How about a bounty system, where you describe work to be done and give a
> > > fixed price or the implementation and people can apply for this job?
> >
> > Maybe my glasses are especially rose-colored, but I think there's
> > plenty-enough core developers that are employed by commercial PostgreSQL
> > companies so that anyone who wants to fund development of a specific
> > feature can do so.
>
> Sure, but why shouldn't we help independent developers also contribute
> who can?

Well, I read it as adding features to the backend, which there don't
seem to be a lot of independent developers left at that level... but
like I said, my glasses could be especially rose-colored. :)

I'm absolutely in favor of getting more developers, both for backend and
non-backend projects.
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 03:51:25AM -0500, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 10:52:32AM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > the buck" evaluation.  However, a couple of people have pointed out that
> > we're still vague on what constitutes "bang".  For example, what are our
>
> I'm tempted to say "bang on".  But I'll resist temptation.
>
> I would like to suggest that we are converging on something like the
> following principles, which can guide case-by-case answers:
>
> * we want to build a strong user base
>     - that may not always entail adding every possible user
>
> * a mix of "small/new market" and "traditional suit enterprise"
>     targets is desirable
>     - such an approach builds strength through diversity
>
> * "industry" types of work, such as standards bodies and
>     techno-political organisation work, is of some degree of
>     importance.
>     - the cost of being involved (in time and travel as well as
>         money) should be a significant, but non-determinant,
>         factor here
>
> Note that, among other properties, this outline entails that we
> evaluate the third request to speak to emerging-community-meeting in
> a given year _differently_ than the first such request.  I think
> that's a feature, not a bug, but I'm happy to hear alternative views.
>
> Do these seem like a reasonable outline of principles on which we
> could make case-by-case determinations?

Yes.. but...

I think we need to consider strongly the payoffs of belonging to
different standards bodies. Some, such as TPC could be highly valuable
(assuming that means the community could then publish TPC numbers);
others, such as ANSI are probably a lot less valuable (my suspicion is
that involvement in ANSI would essentially be a quagmire, but I'm
guessing).
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 12:01:46PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Matteo,
>
> >While you may not have the need to get paying advertisers, I feel that
> >rotating ads of open source projects which use pgsql was an interesting
> >idea, even though it was partly abandoned during the site restyle.
> >
> >There is a fairly good number of monthly ad impressions (without banners
> >on the home page) and it's just a pity to avoid using them.
>
> Hmmm ... we can re-discuss this.  The reason for removing them is that
> *paid* ads detract from our image as a serious, well supported, mature
> OSS project.  Look for other major OSS projects who run paid ads on
> their home page ... there aren't any.
>
> Now, if we wanted to make those ads exclusively for PG-supporting OSS
> projects and for major donors to postgresql.org (and I'm talking
> $10,000+ per year here) then it might be worth revisiting.

+1, especially on the OSS projects front. I think it's very important
for the community for people to see us as a very viable alternative to
MySQL.
--
Jim Nasby                                            jim@nasby.net
EnterpriseDB      http://enterprisedb.com      512.569.9461 (cell)

> > >While you may not have the need to get paying advertisers, I feel
> > >that rotating ads of open source projects which use pgsql was an
> > >interesting idea, even though it was partly abandoned
> during the site restyle.
> > >
> > >There is a fairly good number of monthly ad impressions (without
> > >banners on the home page) and it's just a pity to avoid using them.
> >
> > Hmmm ... we can re-discuss this.  The reason for removing
> them is that
> > *paid* ads detract from our image as a serious, well
> supported, mature
> > OSS project.  Look for other major OSS projects who run paid ads on
> > their home page ... there aren't any.
> >
> > Now, if we wanted to make those ads exclusively for
> PG-supporting OSS
> > projects and for major donors to postgresql.org (and I'm talking
> > $10,000+ per year here) then it might be worth revisiting.
>
> +1, especially on the OSS projects front. I think it's very important
> for the community for people to see us as a very viable
> alternative to MySQL.

-1 from me on the concept of banner ads completely.

+1 on a prominent way for OSS projects related to PostgreSQL to be
visible on our website, but generic banner-ads suck IMHO. For that as
well.

//Magnus