Message-ID: <48CD0F6E.1060401@otg-nc.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:19:42 -0400
From: Chander Ganesan <chander@otg-nc.com>
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To: Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org>
CC: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, pgsql-www@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Download links
References: <937d27e10808110203l790a9c3eud97fdde42f70b92f@mail.gmail.com>	
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	<937d27e10808300559l581198bewce0c3727a10c157f@mail.gmail.com>	
	<200808301950.20330.peter_e@gmx.net> <48BC5B03.2060400@otg-nc.com>
	<937d27e10809011456i3b74004ejf02e8adb26ec8338@mail.gmail.com>
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Dave Page wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Chander Ganesan <chander@otg-nc.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> That being said, the issue that I see with EDB hosting is that they now have
>> access to information about who is downloading from where, information that
>> can be used to determine where they should advertise more heavily, what
>> customers might be investigating PostgreSQL, and even geographical areas
>> they should focus their marketing and product offerings.
>>     
>
> The same information that the hosts of the Yum repo, and other
> distributions have. That is why it was decided that EDB would host the
> downloads (by PG people, not EDB), despite the fact that I originally
> wanted to do it through postgresql.org
>   
So I just downloaded PostgreSQL plus, and noticed that EDB has an 
"information collection" page that asks for a wide range of information 
from the user.  While this is a "permissive" form (i.e., you need not 
fill it out when it is downloaded), it is a form that collects user 
information that wouldn't be available elsewhere, and provides a 
significant competitive advantage to EDB...  It's very targeted 
information that isn't generally available elsewhere. 

This is exactly the sort of thing that I'm concerned about.  Now 
company, Y, Z, etc. can do the same thing, or even OTG can re-package 
PostgreSQL and perform the same set of tasks.
>   
>> Information that
>> isn't available to the PostgreSQL community-at-large, and information that
>> would likely be useful for lots of other PG related companies, such as OTG,
>> CMD, 2ndQuadrant and others.  Is there even a policy with regard to what
>> they do with this information?  Does the community provide this information
>> to the public-at-large (I suspect not, for privacy reasons)?
>>     
>
> Yes, there is an unwritten policy. It basically says that if you're a
> listed corporate sponsor, you can have one-off traffic reports from
> time to time, subject to the availability of someone on the webteam to
> produce what you need. That will generally give far more info than EDB
> gets from installer downloads.
>   
I'm sure I'll ask for this before too long :-)   Unfortunately, its far 
less than what EDB gets through their permissive data collection mechanism.

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