Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 09:12:41 +0100
From: Frank Joerdens <frank@joerdens.de>
To: Mitch Vincent <mitch@venux.net>
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Re: PostgreSQL vs Oracle vs DB2 vs MySQL - Which should I use?
Message-ID: <20010216091241.A30356@rakete.joerdens.de>
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	from mitch@venux.net on Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 08:49:36PM -0500

On Thu, Feb 15, 2001 at 08:49:36PM -0500, Mitch Vincent wrote:
> > Yah. What I find is the developers set the general tone/culture of the
> list.
> > This affects the type of responses/support you get even from the other
> list
> > subscribers. So it's quite good here where you have kind and helpful
> developers.
> 
> Helpful developers doesn't go near far enough..
> 
> I've seen (and still do see) commercial support that isn't up to the grade
> of support I have gotten from the -general and -hackers lists. I can ask any
> question and I *always* get a response within minutes from one of the core
> developers.. I have yet to have a question go un-answered and I've been on
> the list for a pretty long time! It just doesn't get much better than that
> to me.

I agree. The support from the Postgres people is outstanding. There
seems to be a catch though. It was pretty much the same with PHP about 3
years ago: I story I keep telling is that my very first question on the
list there was answered in less than 30 minutes by Rasmus Lerdorf, the
inventor of PHP himself (imagine posting a question to M$ and within 30
mins, the founder of the company . . . ). He's still very active on the
list but the sheer volume of postings has reached a limit, due to the
popularity and success of PHP, where a _lot_ is getting lost and
unanswered in php-general. I wonder whether this is an inbuilt,
unavoidable problem with free software projects once they reach a certain
level of popularity.

Regards, Frank