Thread: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Increased company involvement

I read the hackers list all the time, and have for
years, and my company sponsors PG events every few
months, and I would consider myself fairly "plugged
in" to PG, and this is the first I have seen/heard of
the  PostgreSQL Foundation
http://thepostgresqlfoundation.org/

Perhaps a little more promotion of it's existance, and
a link from the PG home page would help out.  Firebird
has done a great job with their foundation, and there
are two prominent links to it from their home page.

Also, while PG foundation website states "The
PostgreSQL Foundation does not in any way control the
development of the PostgreSQL project" maybe it should
to some extent.  The PG Core dev group should be
honorary top level members, and continue working as
they always have.  But the PG foundation is their
official contact point.  I don't see Tom's or Bruce's
names in the PG foundation member list, which is odd
and disturbing.

One of the problems I feel the PG project has suffered
from over the years is a lack of centralization.  This
made coming to PG difficult for new users, because
they would have to go all over the place for info on
different aspects of PG, and nothing looked
consistent.  You guys have made huge steps forward in
the last year or two in pulling things together, but
there is still room for improvement.

Take a look at firebird.  They provide a pretty
consistent centralized resource for everything from
the main DB engine, to the JDBC driver, to their
foundation.  Now granted, they had a lot easier job to
create a centralized resource because they offer so
much less, and much of it was created after the
foundation was created.  It's always easier to not let
the genie out of the bottle than try to put it back
in.

Basically, the PG foundation is a good thing, and the
core hackers should be more involved and represented
in it.  The foundation should also be made more
prominent and the primary contact point for companies
looking to contribute in any way to PG.  I think if
you did this, there would be more company involvment,
more end user small $$ contributions that could be
pooled to go towards development, and less risk of
companies developing features without contacting PG
first.

Later
Rob
--- Kris Jurka <books@ejurka.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005, Nicolai Petri (lists) wrote:
>
> > We also use PostgreSQL as our primary db so it
> would be more than likely
> > that we would donate money for something similar
> with postgresql if
> > either :
> >   a) we can direct the money at one or more
> specific tasks
> >   or
> >   b) the tasks founded will be related to core
> postgresql features e.g.
> >      generel performance or other benefits that
> fits all.
> >
>
> The problem is organization.  Who decides who gets
> what money?  What about
> features that are paid for and worked on and not
> accepted into the
> community codebase?  This was something I hoped the
> PostgreSQL Foundation
> http://thepostgresqlfoundation.org/ would step in
> and do, but we seem much
> more focused on advocacy efforts rather than
> developemnt ones.
>
> Kris Jurka
>
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Just wanted to address a couple of specific items here...

On Saturday 30 April 2005 08:54, Rob Butler wrote:
> I read the hackers list all the time, and have for
> years, and my company sponsors PG events every few
> months, and I would consider myself fairly "plugged
> in" to PG, and this is the first I have seen/heard of
> the  PostgreSQL Foundation
> http://thepostgresqlfoundation.org/

We have deliberatly kept it low key and unadvertised, mainly because we feel
that we don't yet have the infrastructure in place to play a more prominant
role.  By infrastructure here I am mainly reffering to legal paperwork that
we have filed but are waiting for a response on from the government... all we
can do is wait on that stuff.

> Also, while PG foundation website states "The
> PostgreSQL Foundation does not in any way control the
> development of the PostgreSQL project" maybe it should
> to some extent.  The PG Core dev group should be
> honorary top level members, and continue working as
> they always have.  But the PG foundation is their
> official contact point.  I don't see Tom's or Bruce's
> names in the PG foundation member list, which is odd
> and disturbing.

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic quite a number of times. Let
me assure you that Tom and Bruce have been included on things from the
begining while having been spared getting dragged into the day to day
machinations of things. Since we are primarily focused on advocacy efforts at
this point, this is probably a good way to position things for now.

> Basically, the PG foundation is a good thing, and the
> core hackers should be more involved and represented
> in it.

For the record 3 of the 6 core team members are involved in the foundation. As
for whomever else you would consider a core hacker, the membership includes a
wide number of postgresql's long time contributors and community advocates.
Right now things are being approached on a small scale while we get our ducks
in a row, but once complete you can expect to see things become a little more
visible.

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