Re: [HACKERS] SAP and MySQL ... [and Benchmark]

I'm not THAT familiar with recent developer history, community, or model for Postgres. I do see two individual's names a LOT on this listserve, and they really contribute a lot and guide a lot of us.

Bruce is one, and Tom Lane is the other. I think that Postgres's inertia is vulnerable to one of them dying. Hopefully you two guys, that is a long ways away! But I know of a OSS PHP project where the main guy died young in a motorcycle accident, and the last I heard, there was little progress in the project in a year's time; The project might be dead.

I think that the two main guys should keep a list of their references they use (DB theory, architecture planning, different optimizer theory, etc.), the roadmap for next 1-2 years, anything else that would help the group 'if a bus hit them'.

But, like I said, I'm not too familiar with the development community itself. I'm just relating to the trend I see here in the general list.

Lamar Owen wrote:
> On Thursday 12 June 2003 08:40, Justin Clift wrote:
>
>>Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>
>>>I assume we don't want to mimick FreeBSD's infighting.
>>>
>>>I don't have any problem with doing voting, but I will say that the
>>>stated PostgreSQL core leadership goal, "to do as little as possible",
>>>has served us well.
>
>
>>Or not.
>
>
> Each Open Source project has its own personality. I often use PostgreSQL as
> an example of a well-run OSS project; I do believe that the current model is
> working well.
>
> I understand some of the concerns with the current model. However, this
> database started as a research project, was picked up by a couple of students
> and SQLified, then was picked up by a core group of its users who were
> interested in making it better. And make it better they did! (with help of
> course). Prolific developers have since been added to the core group.
>
> This model has gotten us this far very well; and I don't think a fundamental
> change in it is necessary to take us to the next level.
>
> Or, to put it another way, we have a minimalistic 'government'. Some people
> like that; others do not. Just as in the 'real world'. The user base,
> moderated by core, makes the decisions -- I believe that is as it should be.
> Somewhat like cadmium in a nuclear reactor. (:-)) Core prevents a meltdown,
> and lets the reactor hum at a nice pace.
>
> We want marketing? The someone steps up to the plate and markets (which has
> happened). We want funding? Then some of our users need to step up to the
> plate and do some funding. (which has also happened).
>
> To borrow from another projects model, no one is asking Linus Torvalds to
> accept a voted-in core team for the Linux kernel. He is also one who governs
> as little as possible.
>
> We're not commercial software; why must we act like commercial software?