Igniteration

Have been really slammed this week with things, but wanted to drop a few thoughts about the recent [http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1821359,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000608 eweek] article that quoted heavily from [http://people.planetpostgresql.org/xzilla/index.php?m=20050523 my blog post] about [http://www.enterprisedb.com/ EnterpriseDB]. 1) That article reminded me so much of whats bad with traditional media. While the kernel of the story is valid (what has been the reaction of the pg community to EnterpriseDB?) you only get half the story if you just read the article. Even with the addition of Andy Astor’s comments (which were missing from the original) to the article, there are still several other key pieces of information in the comments on the blog that should have been in the article. That’s the thing with blogs vs. traditional media… by the time I got 3 comments to my blog post, the initial post itself was somewhat old news. In the future, I hope that eweek will at least link directly to any blog posts they reference. 2) We’re not EnterpriseDB’s target market. Certainly I am not. I don’t use Oracle regularly, and when I have used it I didn’t much care for it. (See dual, sql*plus, and plan_table for three reasons why). So, for EnterpriseDB, I’m not the guy they’re trying to sell to, and neither are a majority of the other folks within the PostgreSQL community, since we are generally already running PostgreSQL, and stand a good chance at not having come here from Oracle. So if the community isn’t excited, thats no big deal. Besides, a lot of people are still digesting [http://www.greenplum.com/ Greenplum’s] recent activities, and also the [http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2005-06/msg00002.php recent news] that [http://unisys.com/index.htm Unisys] is jumping on board the PostgreSQL bandwagon, so you have to give people some time. 3) The community is excited, and if they aren’t, they will be; we just need two things to occur. First, people need to hear about EntepriseDB’s sponsored development. Once they learn about this, they will start to come around. Second, we need to see those first couple-three case studies that describe clients who have switched from Oracle to PostgreSQL. Once those come out, people will get excited. 4) Charlie Garry doesn’t get it. He still thinks in old models, and doesn’t understand where technology is headed. (Go read [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001OOTN4/qid=1117834346/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-3655245-8665442?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 Cluetrain] as a starter). In the article he says that My$QL is the open source database to watch because they control their code, and aren’t dependent on the community for their development. But that’s just the reason why PostgreSQL, as an open source database, is going to achieve “world domination”. In the long run, a single company can’t compete with the development efforts of dozens (hundreds?) of other companies. The feature set that PostgreSQL 8.1 is going to have is huge, and would have taken much longer if we had to rely on the single company development model. This is why people are glad to see companies like EnterpriseDB come into the fold, even if they don’t jump up and down about it.