> Tatsuo, this has always fascinated me. Any insights you could share about how PostgreSQL achieved the prominence it has in Japan (and how MySQL did not) would be very interesting.
PostgreSQL started to become popular in 1998(PostgreSQL 6.4 days). In
the year a publisher asked me to write the first PostgreSQL book and
fortunately it has sold very well. From then many PostgreSQL books
have been published and lots of magazine articles have been written
too. As as result, PostgreSQL users could enjoy rich PostgreSQL
information in Japanese. Since most Japanese (including me) is not
very good at English, localized docs for PostgreSQL is the key factor
for the "prominence". On the other hand, almost no good Japanese MySQL
books have ever appeared.
Next point is the community. Japan PostgreSQL Users Group (JPUG) has
been established in 1999 and now has over 1800 registered members
(local ML for PostgreSQL has over 5400 subscribers). I guess MySQL
does not have this kind large community.
These are not proven factors for the popularity of PostgreSQL in
Japan, I believe they definitely could be listed as one of the top 10
reasons.
--
Tatsuo Ishii