X-Original-To: pgsql-advocacy-postgresql.org@localhost.postgresql.org Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.2]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77296D1CA9C for ; Thu, 29 Apr 2004 10:27:19 -0300 (ADT) Received: from svr1.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (neptune.hub.org [200.46.204.2]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 76002-01 for ; Thu, 29 Apr 2004 10:27:01 -0300 (ADT) Received: from tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net (tomts20.bellnexxia.net [209.226.175.74]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 61594D1E3DF for ; Thu, 29 Apr 2004 10:26:57 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sympatico.ca ([67.69.161.63]) by tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.06.05 201-253-122-130-105-20030824) with ESMTP id <20040429132650.BZH15811.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@sympatico.ca>; Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:26:50 -0400 Message-ID: <4091028D.6060908@sympatico.ca> Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:26:37 -0400 From: Robert Bernier Reply-To: robert.bernier5@sympatico.ca User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Treat Cc: Bruno Wolff III , Greg Sabino Mullane , pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org Subject: Re: What can we learn from MySQL? References: <20040429044848.GA22881@wolff.to> <1083244117.14686.146.camel@camel> In-Reply-To: <1083244117.14686.146.camel@camel> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at postgresql.org X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.1 tagged_above=0.0 required=5.0 tests=RCVD_IN_SORBS X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 200404/294 X-Sequence-Number: 4266 Robert Treat wrote: >On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 00:48, Bruno Wolff III wrote: > > >>On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 01:30:23 -0000, >> Greg Sabino Mullane wrote: >> >> >>>I care. More market share equals more jobs, which equals more people >>>working on the project. It's all well and good to treat Postgres as >>>an academic exercise, but at some point the work needs to be applied >>>to real world stuff. We are competing with real-world, commercial >>>projects right now, and the success of how well we do will directly >>>impact this project. Do you think that Red Hat will continue to employ >>>Tom Lane if Postgres fades away into a footnote and something else >>>becomes the database of choice for Red Hat? Do you realize that every >>>time a company chooses us, jobs are created for people who use, >>>test, and even develop PostgreSQL? >>> >>> >>And more support questions get asked taking time away from development. >>For companies the net balance is probably in postgres' favor on average. >>However, getting individuals to use postgres who have no background >>in databases may be a net minus. Hopefully that won't happen. It will >>be interesting to see what happens to the support lists after the >>windows port is available. >> >> >> > >Which is one of the reasons that I think chasing my$ql's market is the >wrong way to go. We need to be looking for oracle/db2 converts... or at >the least informix/progress/m$ or other 2nd tier databases that we are >most likely already superior too. > > > I think the pg grassroots are low end users (ie: people with less knowledge and budgets than the established parties). Everything of an opensource nature has always gained popularity and strength from these people. MySQL has a constituency that came from here. The grass roots are people who are willing to invest the energy needed to adopt to change which is what pg represents. Robert Bernier