Re: Thoughs after discussions at OSCON

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 07:36, Christopher Browne wrote:
> > Random responses from a non-OSCONer:
> >> The first item I think bears mention is the number of occasions I
> >> had people ask me whether the project is losing steam, or "losing
> >> out" to MySQL, or being no threat to Oracle.
> >
> > We certainly are not gaining "geek mindshare" as fast as we should.
> > It doesn't help that O'Reilly seems to be in bed with MySQL AB
> > (exhibit one: the joint MySQL conference).
>

So if you have been to an oscon in recent years, you'll be familiar with the
"open source trends" that Tim O'Rielly gives every year. Basically the idea
behind the talk is that you can spot trends within open source based on book
sales for a given topic. The problem of course is that every year we end up
looking bad because there are about 47,000 my$ql/oracle books and only 1
postgresql book, which is now several years out of date. I had to explain
this again this year to folks who weren't aware of the discrepency, but took
notice that postgresql comprises a very small dot on the orielly radar
screen. In fact, if you look in the catalog they provided to oscon attendees,
which includes about 1/2 dozen oreilly friendly publishers, you'll notice
there isn't a single postgresql book included.

> It seems to me that APress is a plausible publisher to "bias towards;"
> the last couple of books that I have found *very* interesting were
> published by them.
>

Having now met several of the Apress folks and knowing a bunch more, I can
tell you Apress is very excited about PostgreSQL's potential in the book
market. As most folks are aware, they recently released an updated version
of the begining database w/ postgresql book, which they acquired the rights
to from wrox. Another good sign is that they are currently working with
Mitch Pirtle on a Mambo book, which should include bits on using Mambo w/
PostgreSQL. Now I'll grant that these folks are a business, so thier
enthusiasm is directly tied to thier sales, but from what I have seen they
are by far the most pro-postgresql publisher around right now.

As a side note, I am currently reading the book "Joel on Software" from
Apress, which discusses software development strategies in an informal and
entertaining manner. I'd recommend it to anyone who does development or
project managment, it's at least as entertaining as any of the LISP books ;-)

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL