Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Oracle buys Innobase

Andrew Sullivan wrote:

>On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 01:19:53PM -0700, Chris Travers wrote:
>
>
>>Ok. but it is still a lazy approach and indicates that Oracle has not
>>singled us out for special treatment. Again, this was not the case with
>>MySQL as of 2000 at the latest.
>>
>>
>
>I may be more paranoid, but that may be because our use of PostgreSQL
>was real unpopular in the original Oracle shop where the registry
>software was developed (the technical side of Afilias was originally
>called Liberty RMS, and was a subsidiary of TUCOWS. I was hired
>originally by them. Afilias bought Liberty not long after the .info
>registry went live, however, and we've always been a better fit here
>than we were at TUCOWS). I do know, however, that Oracle doesn't
>publicly talk about PostgreSQL, but they have plenty to say in
>private about it to their existing customers. And it's not nearly as
>ill-informed as the public comments suggest.
>
>
Interesting. So they are willing to appear ill-informed in public but
better informed in private? To what end? That seems strange to me....

>
>
>>I think it is important to eventually capture the image of PostgreSQL as
>>*the* FOSS RDBMS (which MySQL currently still holds among too many
>>developers). But that is the extent of my concern with them.
>>
>>
>
>Sure. But if you build a reputation as an industrial-strength system
>that happens to be free, you can go after the FOSS area without much
>additional effort; whereas if you concentrate first on being free,
>you then have the later problem of moving from "free" to "enterprise
>grade".
>
>
Well, it cuts both ways. MySQL's strategy is very Microsoft-like (in an
effective way) in that it seeks to use the commodity market to subsidize
the higher end-market and thereby grow its way into the enterprise, sort
of like Windows.... This really isn't a bad way to go.

However, where we shine is that we have a bigger and more active
community than MySQL (to the extent that MySQL used to criticize us for
it). This is in the end what really matters in the short run. However,
failing to capture the low-end market (including uninteresting markets
like CMS, low-end web apps, etc) has a number of real disadvantages
including:

1) Beginners learn bad habits via MySQL and MS Access.
2) Those beginners may grow to do larger applications and will try to
use MS Access or MySQL in ways that it is not designed to work (and for
MS Access users, they will invariably go to MS SQL).

This is one reason why I would like to see some of us push PostgreSQL
into a role of *the* RDBMS to study for RDBMS theory. Unfortunately
this means a lot of documentation written by experts interested in
really teaching beginners the right way to do things.... I don't
consider myself qualified to do this by myself.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting