Re: Thoughs after discussions at OSCON

ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca (Andrew Sullivan) writes:
> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:49:28AM -0400, Rick Morris wrote:
>>
>> - Thus, taking the above under advisement, it would seem best not to
>> fight MySQL on their ground, nor to spend much time on feature
>> distinction, but to forge more serious relationships with organizations
>> who have serious needs.
>
> I think this is a capital idea. It seems this is a place to focus.

Absolutely.

The same would be true of "fighting Oracle on their ground."

One thought suggested by someone outside of "the community" is that
one of the things that the various "more popular" systems have gotten
'right' is the notion of having a "Foo Press" that is responsible for
deploying books about their systems.

This is true for various values of "Foo" including the members of the
set {"Microsoft", "Oracle", "MySQL"}.

Contrast with some systems that people hardly ever hear of...
- There is exactly ONE book available on MaxDB, by No Starch Press
- There is exactly ONE book available on SQLite, by New Riders
- APress has ONE book on Firebird...
- It is not comforting that O'Reilly only has one PostgreSQL book :-(

One "capital idea" might well be to establish a "PostgreSQL Press,"
whether in cooperation with an existing publisher or otherwise. The
timing of this would be pretty critical; we're likely at a fairly
critical point in time for it now, for it to happen or not.

There's immediate room for a multiplicity of titles, including:

- Publishing a "dead tree" edition of the 'official' docs

- Perhaps a work on Performance Tuning (I have had some notes
collecting for a couple years, albeit with NOTHING added in
at least a year :-().

- Something on Slony-I

There are enough interested folk, in my view, for at least those three
as _obvious_ first works.

FYI, nothing is new...

Back before MySQL had anything to do with SAPDB, I commented on the
SAPDB mailing list the VITAL need for literature on it; the paucity of
interest in MaxDB is quite consistent with how recent it was when a
book was first released on the subject...

<http://lists.mysql.org/maxdb/2178>
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> Thanks. I've downloaded and printed the online docs. I was just
> wondering/hoping (if) there were other publications out there. It
> would be great if SAP could develop 'Oracle Press' like
> publications, that were written by developers, that could take us
> into the 'subtle' nuances of the system.

That only is likely to happen if/when there appears to be a market for
selling such publications.

Oracle has clearly _built_ a market for certification and
documentation; that has involved spending a _lot_ of money on what
might be called "business development." It's not evident that it is
in SAP's interests to spend that kind of money on SAP-DB; they aren't
likely to see billions of dollars in licensing revenues walking in
their door as a side-effect [or as a prime effect!].

It may be plausible to convince some publisher [M+T, New Riders,
O'Reilly come to mind] to publish something, were SAP to pay something
in; it's still not obvious that this is a good way for SAP to spend
their money.

What _would_ be nice would be if there was some documentation in
"libre" form that could readily be published in "dead tree" form where
it would cost ~$20 USD to get the docs printed for a single copy. I'm
just not sure what "dead tree publishers" are readily available to do
that sort of thing.
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