Re: [GENERAL] PostgreSQL 9.0

I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it
into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this
to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3? It looks like postgresql is
rapidly catching up to oracle if 8.3 branch gets every feature
scheduled for it.

About the only big features pg 8.3 doesn't have is materialized views
and RMAN..

Now that PostgreSQL is getting so close to oracle functionality, is
there any worry in the community that oracle will begin to target
postgres like they're targeting mySQL?

regards,
karen

No.
Postgres does not represent an economic entity that can compete for $
$ with Oracle.

It's also not nearly as popular. And I mean that in a very pop-
culture way.
How long did it take Oracle to support Linux? Only when it became
"pop"ular to do so.

Who would they target anyways?
There's no one company....

On Jan 29, 2007, at 4:27 PM, Karen Hill wrote:

> I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it
> into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this
> to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3? It looks like postgresql is
> rapidly catching up to oracle if 8.3 branch gets every feature
> scheduled for it.
>
> About the only big features pg 8.3 doesn't have is materialized views
> and RMAN..
>
> Now that PostgreSQL is getting so close to oracle functionality, is
> there any worry in the community that oracle will begin to target
> postgres like they're targeting mySQL?
>
> regards,
> karen
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
>
> QIDX:b07f206845737e76a8dbfbcfaae7837f

> On Jan 29, 2007, at 4:27 PM, Karen Hill wrote:
>
> >I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it
> >into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this
> >to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3? It looks like postgresql is
> >rapidly catching up to oracle if 8.3 branch gets every feature
> >scheduled for it.

At one point there was discussion about using changes to the first digit
to indicate that a dump and restore was needed because of an on disk format
change and that changes to the second digit would indicate that only catalog
entries have changed and that an upgrade tool (that doesn't exist yet) could
be used to make the changes with minimal downtime.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 01/29/07 16:05, tom wrote:
> No.
> Postgres does not represent an economic entity that can compete for $$
> with Oracle.
>
> It's also not nearly as popular. And I mean that in a very pop-culture
> way.
> How long did it take Oracle to support Linux? Only when it became
> "pop"ular to do so.
>
> Who would they target anyways?
> There's no one company....

They could buy out CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB...

The buyouts wouldn't *kill* pg, but they would wound it mightily.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFFvnRGS9HxQb37XmcRAjA7AJ96LsBV2af16AjNcuSMLnQT6TvhmgCdESzN
17BSJ6ujxPwkebKwCbBEuy4=
=kZ5Q
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 01:27:19PM -0800, Karen Hill wrote:
> there any worry in the community that oracle will begin to target
> postgres like they're targeting mySQL?

I attended a big ora conference in 2006 and was a bit surprised to
observe the fact that ora corp keynote addresses did not even mention
a db. The big focus was the apps, their future. I think they have
resigned themselves to those weak db sales. They can just charge
what they like this week to the people who live on their apps.

Mogens Norgaard wrote in Tales of the Oak Table, 2004, "But Oracle needs
to reinvent itself. No company can survive on a database only revenue
stream in the next 10 years."

That said, probably, lasts gasps from a legacy system. I'm wondering
when ora will open up its code ala sun/solaris.

Ray Stell wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 01:27:19PM -0800, Karen Hill wrote:
> > there any worry in the community that oracle will begin to target
> > postgres like they're targeting mySQL?
>
> I attended a big ora conference in 2006 and was a bit surprised to
> observe the fact that ora corp keynote addresses did not even mention
> a db. The big focus was the apps, their future. I think they have
> resigned themselves to those weak db sales. They can just charge
> what they like this week to the people who live on their apps.

Absolutely!

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On 1/29/07, Ray Stell <stellr(at)cns(dot)vt(dot)edu> wrote:
>
> That said, probably, lasts gasps from a legacy system. I'm wondering
> when ora will open up its code ala sun/solaris.
>

According to a recent Gartner study, Oracle has 48% market share (in other
words they are the market leader by a margin of 26%).

http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_152619_11.html

I am pretty convinced Oracle wouldn't open source their database code. The
competition would tear them apart by "reinventing" the Oracle Database. If
you want open source Oracle code then download BDB or InnoDB ;), I think
that is as close as it gets.

--
Chad
http://www.postgresqlforums.com/

On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Bruno Wolff III wrote:

> At one point there was discussion about using changes to the first digit
> to indicate that a dump and restore was needed because of an on disk
> format change and that changes to the second digit would indicate that
> only catalog entries have changed and that an upgrade tool (that doesn't
> exist yet) could be used to make the changes with minimal downtime.

Bruno,

So, to migrate from -8.1.4 to -8.2.1 I don't need to dump and restore?

Thanks,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Accelerator(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863

On Jan 30, 2007, at 8:38 , Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Bruno Wolff III wrote:
>
>> At one point there was discussion about using changes to the first
>> digit
>> to indicate that a dump and restore was needed because of an on disk
>> format change and that changes to the second digit would indicate
>> that
>> only catalog entries have changed and that an upgrade tool (that
>> doesn't
>> exist yet) could be used to make the changes with minimal downtime.
>
> Bruno,
>
> So, to migrate from -8.1.4 to -8.2.1 I don't need to dump and
> restore?

It was *discussed*. 8.1 to 8.2 (as does any move from M.x to M.y
where x ≠ y) requires a dump and reload.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Michael Glaesemann wrote:

> It was *discussed*. 8.1 to 8.2 (as does any move from M.x to M.y where x ­
> y) requires a dump and reload.

Michael,

That's what I thought. However, it never hurts to ask. :-)

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Accelerator(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863

On Jan 30, 2007, at 8:51 , Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Michael Glaesemann wrote:
>
>> It was *discussed*. 8.1 to 8.2 (as does any move from M.x to M.y
>> where x
>> y) requires a dump and reload.
>
> Michael,
>
> That's what I thought. However, it never hurts to ask. :-)

Or check the release notes :)

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net

On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Michael Glaesemann wrote:

> Or check the release notes :)

Oooh! What a novel idea. :-)

I don't have the time -- or the need right now -- to upgrade so it's on
the back burner.

Thanks, Michael,

Rich

--
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Accelerator(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863

On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 15:51:54 -0800,
Rich Shepard <rshepard(at)appl-ecosys(dot)com> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Michael Glaesemann wrote:
>
> >It was *discussed*. 8.1 to 8.2 (as does any move from M.x to M.y where x ­
> >y) requires a dump and reload.
>
> Michael,
>
> That's what I thought. However, it never hurts to ask. :-)

I figured that mentionioning you need a tool that doesn't exist would make
it clear that this was proposed for the future and not current reality.

Karen Hill wrote:
> I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it
> into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this
> to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3?

If every release got all the features "scheduled" for it, we'd be at
version 37.0 now. At this point, there is no telling what will be in
8.3.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

am Tue, dem 30.01.2007, um 8:47:48 +0100 mailte Peter Eisentraut folgendes:
> Karen Hill wrote:
> > I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it
> > into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this
> > to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3?
>
> If every release got all the features "scheduled" for it, we'd be at
> version 37.0 now. At this point, there is no telling what will be in
> 8.3.

Full ACK, we have a wishlist with many nice features. That's all.

Andreas
--
Andreas Kretschmer
Kontakt: Heynitz: 035242/47150, D1: 0160/7141639 (mehr: -> Header)
GnuPG-ID: 0x3FFF606C, privat 0x7F4584DA http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net

Ron Johnson wrote:
>> Who would they target anyways?
>> There's no one company....
>
> They could buy out CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB...
>
> The buyouts wouldn't *kill* pg, but they would wound it mightily.

I don't think so. High-profile and high priced buyouts
of CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB would be great for
postgresql.

It would be a strong motivation for entrepreneurs to start
postgresql companies, developers to build postgresql expertise,
VCs to invest in postgresql companies. And guys like Pervasive
would be kicking themselves for not keeping sticking with it.

On 1/30/07, Ron Mayer <rm_pg(at)cheapcomplexdevices(dot)com> wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
> >> Who would they target anyways?
> >> There's no one company....
> >
> > They could buy out CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB...
> >
> > The buyouts wouldn't *kill* pg, but they would wound it mightily.
>
> I don't think so. High-profile and high priced buyouts
> of CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB would be great for
> postgresql.
>
> It would be a strong motivation for entrepreneurs to start
> postgresql companies, developers to build postgresql expertise,
> VCs to invest in postgresql companies. And guys like Pervasive
> would be kicking themselves for not keeping sticking with it.

One would think that with the acquisiton of Berkeley DB and InnoDB
one should see a flourish of database engine startups, but I seem
to have missed that.

My point is, its not about throwing money at a problem. PostgreSQL
seems to be having right people at the right place and benefits from
it. They do the hard work, they do it well, hence 8.0, 8.1, 8.2 and
upcoming 8.3 release. If you buy these people out, it will take time
to find and teach new ones. Writing RDBMS is not dusting crops,
ya know. ;)))

Regards,
Dawid

PS: I guess this thread belongs in advocacy, please update To: headers
accordingly.

Dawid Kuroczko wrote:
> On 1/30/07, Ron Mayer <rm_pg(at)cheapcomplexdevices(dot)com> wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > >> Who would they target anyways?
> > >> There's no one company....
> > >
> > > They could buy out CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB...
> > >
> > > The buyouts wouldn't *kill* pg, but they would wound it mightily.
> >
> > I don't think so. High-profile and high priced buyouts
> > of CommandPrompt and EnterpriseDB would be great for
> > postgresql.
> >
> > It would be a strong motivation for entrepreneurs to start
> > postgresql companies, developers to build postgresql expertise,
> > VCs to invest in postgresql companies. And guys like Pervasive
> > would be kicking themselves for not keeping sticking with it.
>
> One would think that with the acquisiton of Berkeley DB and InnoDB
> one should see a flourish of database engine startups, but I seem
> to have missed that.
>
> My point is, its not about throwing money at a problem. PostgreSQL
> seems to be having right people at the right place and benefits from
> it. They do the hard work, they do it well, hence 8.0, 8.1, 8.2 and
> upcoming 8.3 release. If you buy these people out, it will take time
> to find and teach new ones. Writing RDBMS is not dusting crops,
> ya know. ;)))

Having contributors bought out was always one of our three risks, the
other two being patent and trademark attacks. Not sure what we can
really do about them.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

"Dawid Kuroczko" <qnex42(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> My point is, its not about throwing money at a problem. PostgreSQL
> seems to be having right people at the right place and benefits from
> it. They do the hard work, they do it well, hence 8.0, 8.1, 8.2 and
> upcoming 8.3 release. If you buy these people out, it will take time
> to find and teach new ones. Writing RDBMS is not dusting crops,
> ya know. ;)))

Buying out a company wouldn't affect dedicated people; they'd find a job
somewhere else and keep right at it. Companies have disappeared on us
before (Great Bridge, Pervasive) and the project is still here.

I think one significant difference between us and MySQL is that that
project probably *could* be killed by acquiring and shutting down one
company.

regards, tom lane

Dawid Kuroczko wrote:

> to find and teach new ones. Writing RDBMS is not dusting crops,
> ya know. ;)))
>
> Regards,
> Dawid

Love the Star Wars reference !!

Patrick
(thinking about breaking out the old Laserdisk of the ORIGINAL movie)

Bruce,

> Having contributors bought out was always one of our three risks, the
> other two being patent and trademark attacks. Not sure what we can
> really do about them.

Actually, the potential for trademark attacks is minimal to nonexistant
according to the attorney's report. So I'm not worrying about it.

Patent attacks are no more a risk for us than they are for every other OSS
project, and the answer for these is to support the anti-patent
organizations.

Overall, I think we're in a good position in that there are a lot of
attacks which could *hurt* PostgreSQL, but none which are a guarenteed
kill, and the public knowledge of an attack could easily cause our users
and enemies of the attacker, and the OSS legal community, to rally to our
defense and support. This makes any attack a risky proposition for the
attacker.

Our #1 best defense is to make sure that as many companies as possible have
invested in making PostgreSQL an integral part of their infrastructure
and/or product line.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco