Re: On what we want to support: travel?

On Thursday 02 November 2006 12:48, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 04:30:45PM +0100, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumacher
wrote:
> > Without a large user base, it is hard for a project to survive. See
> > all those dead projects at sourceforge and co.
>
> It is very important for us, in this conversation, to understand
> something: large user base != people who make a lot of noise on
> Slashdot (or wherever you like).
>

Granted, but we *struggle* for developers on a lot of the ancillary projects;
Take phppgadmin vs. phpmyadmin for example; or take a look at some of the pl
languages that don't have a full set of capabilities or have platform issues.
We're not just in need of core developers or slashdot posters, we're still in
need of rounding out the current postgresql ecosystem and we need new blood
to do it.

> I think there are very good reasons to believe that PostgreSQL _does_
> now have a large user base. There are some very significant
> companies -- as someone recent pointed out, one of them has a much
> larger revenue stream than Oracle Corp -- who have invested in
> PostgreSQL. There are some companies for whom PostgreSQL is now a
> core part of their now-profitable business. There is also an active
> user and development community. These may be areas of relatively
> low-profile, quiet growth. If you've ever had a lawn with creeping
> charlie in it, though, you will realise that low-profile, quiet
> growth does not mean that it is not pervasive and significant.
>

We are a large project, but as large as our user base is we still can't muster
a better answer to the "Alexa 100" question than "uh, yeah a bunch of them
use postgres but we can't tell you who except for these one guys who aren't
willing to give any details".

To paraphrase Theo Schlossnagle at OSCon, "If you want to run a TB size
database on Oracle, you pick up the phone and you can call 30 people to get
help with your problem without a lot of effort. If you want to do it on
Postgres, you just can't find that level of public experience with the
problems you're going to face."

There are a lot of spaces where postgresql is being used and/or could be used
that could certainly benefit from a larger spotlight and a larger community
pool.

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