Re: bad advocacy by TWiki bigwig

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Hey All,

I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was in the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too positive about PostgreSQL:

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1

search for 'postgres' on that page and you'll see.

Just thought i'd share it (well, after i shared it on #postgresql-eu Andreas prompted me to share it here too)!

While at it, we're currently revising the governance of the TWiki project, and i wrote this topic today:

http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/LearningFromPostgreSQL

Hope i got my facts straight!

Gr,

Koen

- --
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
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On 15/02/2008 23:27, Koen Martens wrote:

> was in the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was
> not too positive about PostgreSQL:

Sounds like he has a limited idea of "successful"....

Ray.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod(at)iol(dot)ie
---------------------------------------------------------------

Koen,

> I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source
> structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was in
> the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too
> positive about PostgreSQL:

Nah, apparently Rod just wants to trive Twiki towards a VC-funded model for
revenue, and is slanting his arguments to back that up. Note that every one
of the projects he admires is single-company VC-controlled OSS.

If I were a member of the Twiki community, I'd want to keep a close eye on
Rod.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Koen,
>
>> I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source
>> structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was in
>> the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too
>> positive about PostgreSQL:
>
> Nah, apparently Rod just wants to trive Twiki towards a VC-funded model for
> revenue, and is slanting his arguments to back that up. Note that every one
> of the projects he admires is single-company VC-controlled OSS.
>
> If I were a member of the Twiki community, I'd want to keep a close eye on
> Rod.
>

I would second this. If you look at projects with contributing community
most are not led by a single entity. I can think of a few
(Fedora/Redhat) but MySQL certainly doesn't qualify. For the most part,
the strongest amongst the open source community that have commercial
interest are lead by a diverse crowd of community members, contributors,
competitors and friends.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

P.S. Hi EDB.

Hi all,

I know the twiki.net folks and was curious why they would be bashing
PostgreSQL, so I asked Peter Thoeny about this. He asked me to post his
clarification on Koen's email, see below. Please don't respond to me,
I'm not involved in the TWiki community. If you have further comments
please address Peter directly.

Dirk

---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------

Public statement by Peter Thoeny, TWiki.org founder:

Dear PostgreSQL community,

Please accept my apologies on behalf of the TWiki community. I took
notes during the meeting, and I am sorry I did not log all relevant
pieces that have been said about PostgreSQL during the meeting.

Since Rod is out of town, let me try to state what Rod said at the
meeting, to the best of my recollection:

"PostgreSQL has arguably the best open source RDBMS technology, but
unfortunately they lost market share to companies with lesser
technology. I consider the PostgreSQL business model a failure, because
there is no leading company associated with it. This has been publicly
stated by some PostgreSQL community members." He went on to say that
successful models are open source communities with one driving company
alongside them: MySQL, RedHat/Fedora, Zimbra, JBoss, etc.

I find it unfortunate that Koen is using words in this forum like "bad
advocacy by TWiki bigwig" without first clarifying things with the
person involved. I am not sure what the intent of this e-mail was. It is
too easy to take stuff out of context in an online medium.

Full disclosure: TWIKI.NET is working towards a win/win/win for the
TWiki community, sponsoring companies and customers. Koen is in a small
group of TWiki consultants who have not bought into this strategy.

My apologies again for the stir, kind regards,
Peter

---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------

Koen Martens wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hey All,
>
> I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was in the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too positive about PostgreSQL:
>
> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1
>
> search for 'postgres' on that page and you'll see.
>
> Just thought i'd share it (well, after i shared it on #postgresql-eu Andreas prompted me to share it here too)!
>
> While at it, we're currently revising the governance of the TWiki project, and i wrote this topic today:
>
> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/LearningFromPostgreSQL
>
> Hope i got my facts straight!
>
> Gr,
>
> Koen
>
> - --
> K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
> Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
> Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFHth/hktDgRrkFPpYRAjdCAJ0bYj3GxSrnVS0o/MhZrrSsBQfB1wCfWQ4t
> s1C18fhlK/WVt5QcfgsWXU0=
> =BrHV
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org
>
>

--
Phone: + 1 (650) 215 3459
Web: http://www.riehle.org

Hi All,

Thank you for all your comments, both on-line and off-line. Sorry for
getting you involved in this, i did not even mean to post it on
postgresql-advocacy initially. I mentioned it in passing on an irc
channel, and ment to leave it to that.

Having said that, i've received some very meaningful comments that we
can move forward with. As far as i'm concerned, this thread on
postgresql-advocacy is concluded.

Best,

Koen

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 09:59:41AM +0100, Dirk Riehle wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I know the twiki.net folks and was curious why they would be bashing
> PostgreSQL, so I asked Peter Thoeny about this. He asked me to post his
> clarification on Koen's email, see below. Please don't respond to me, I'm
> not involved in the TWiki community. If you have further comments please
> address Peter directly.
>
> Dirk
>
> ---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------
>
> Public statement by Peter Thoeny, TWiki.org founder:
>
> Dear PostgreSQL community,
>
> Please accept my apologies on behalf of the TWiki community. I took notes
> during the meeting, and I am sorry I did not log all relevant pieces that
> have been said about PostgreSQL during the meeting.
>
> Since Rod is out of town, let me try to state what Rod said at the meeting,
> to the best of my recollection:
>
> "PostgreSQL has arguably the best open source RDBMS technology, but
> unfortunately they lost market share to companies with lesser technology. I
> consider the PostgreSQL business model a failure, because there is no
> leading company associated with it. This has been publicly stated by some
> PostgreSQL community members." He went on to say that successful models are
> open source communities with one driving company alongside them: MySQL,
> RedHat/Fedora, Zimbra, JBoss, etc.
>
> I find it unfortunate that Koen is using words in this forum like "bad
> advocacy by TWiki bigwig" without first clarifying things with the person
> involved. I am not sure what the intent of this e-mail was. It is too easy
> to take stuff out of context in an online medium.
>
> Full disclosure: TWIKI.NET is working towards a win/win/win for the TWiki
> community, sponsoring companies and customers. Koen is in a small group of
> TWiki consultants who have not bought into this strategy.
>
> My apologies again for the stir, kind regards,
> Peter
>
>
> ---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------
>
>
> Koen Martens wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Hey All,
>>
>> I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source
>> structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was in
>> the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too
>> positive about PostgreSQL:
>>
>> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1
>>
>> search for 'postgres' on that page and you'll see.
>>
>> Just thought i'd share it (well, after i shared it on #postgresql-eu
>> Andreas prompted me to share it here too)!
>>
>> While at it, we're currently revising the governance of the TWiki project,
>> and i wrote this topic today:
>>
>> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/LearningFromPostgreSQL
>>
>> Hope i got my facts straight!
>>
>> Gr,
>>
>> Koen
>>
>> - -- K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
>> Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
>> Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>>
>> iD8DBQFHth/hktDgRrkFPpYRAjdCAJ0bYj3GxSrnVS0o/MhZrrSsBQfB1wCfWQ4t
>> s1C18fhlK/WVt5QcfgsWXU0=
>> =BrHV
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>>
>> http://archives.postgresql.org
>>
>>
>
> --
> Phone: + 1 (650) 215 3459
> Web: http://www.riehle.org
>
>
>

--
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program
can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/

Hi All,

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 09:59:41AM +0100, Dirk Riehle wrote:
> I know the twiki.net folks and was curious why they would be bashing
> PostgreSQL, so I asked Peter Thoeny about this. He asked me to post his
> clarification on Koen's email, see below. Please don't respond to me, I'm
> not involved in the TWiki community. If you have further comments please
> address Peter directly.

Thank you for all your comments, both on-line and off-line. Sorry for
getting you involved in this, i did not even mean to post it on
postgresql-advocacy initially. I mentioned it in passing on an irc
channel, and meant to leave it to that.

Having said that, i've received some very meaningful comments that we
can move forward with. As far as i'm concerned, this thread on
postgresql-advocacy is concluded.

Best,

Koen

--
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program
can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/

Thanks for posting this, Dirk (and Peter). I don't think any of us would disagree that different models yield different results, and that the Postgres community model is more focused on developing a great product than (necessarily) a single great company. However, I'm curious about Rod's market share comment - is that documented in any meaningful way?

Regards,
Ned

--
Ned Lilly
President and CEO
xTuple (formerly OpenMFG)
119 West York Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
tel. 757.461.3022 x101
email: ned(at)xtuple(dot)com
www.xtuple.com

On 2/17/2008 3:59 AM Dirk Riehle wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I know the twiki.net folks and was curious why they would be bashing
> PostgreSQL, so I asked Peter Thoeny about this. He asked me to post his
> clarification on Koen's email, see below. Please don't respond to me,
> I'm not involved in the TWiki community. If you have further comments
> please address Peter directly.
>
> Dirk
>
> ---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------
>
> Public statement by Peter Thoeny, TWiki.org founder:
>
> Dear PostgreSQL community,
>
> Please accept my apologies on behalf of the TWiki community. I took
> notes during the meeting, and I am sorry I did not log all relevant
> pieces that have been said about PostgreSQL during the meeting.
>
> Since Rod is out of town, let me try to state what Rod said at the
> meeting, to the best of my recollection:
>
> "PostgreSQL has arguably the best open source RDBMS technology, but
> unfortunately they lost market share to companies with lesser
> technology. I consider the PostgreSQL business model a failure, because
> there is no leading company associated with it. This has been publicly
> stated by some PostgreSQL community members." He went on to say that
> successful models are open source communities with one driving company
> alongside them: MySQL, RedHat/Fedora, Zimbra, JBoss, etc.
>
> I find it unfortunate that Koen is using words in this forum like "bad
> advocacy by TWiki bigwig" without first clarifying things with the
> person involved. I am not sure what the intent of this e-mail was. It is
> too easy to take stuff out of context in an online medium.
>
> Full disclosure: TWIKI.NET is working towards a win/win/win for the
> TWiki community, sponsoring companies and customers. Koen is in a small
> group of TWiki consultants who have not bought into this strategy.
>
> My apologies again for the stir, kind regards,
> Peter
>
>
> ---8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><-----------8><--------
>
>
> Koen Martens wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Hey All,
>>
>> I'm an active member of the TWiki community, which is an open source
>> structured wiki. We had a community summit these past two days. It was
>> in the US, and i attended virtually, one of the attendants was not too
>> positive about PostgreSQL:
>>
>> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiCommunitySummit2008Q1
>>
>> search for 'postgres' on that page and you'll see.
>>
>> Just thought i'd share it (well, after i shared it on #postgresql-eu
>> Andreas prompted me to share it here too)!
>>
>> While at it, we're currently revising the governance of the TWiki
>> project, and i wrote this topic today:
>>
>> http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/LearningFromPostgreSQL
>>
>> Hope i got my facts straight!
>>
>> Gr,
>>
>> Koen
>>
>> - -- K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
>> Networking, hosting, embedded systems, unix, artificial intelligence.
>> Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>>
>> iD8DBQFHth/hktDgRrkFPpYRAjdCAJ0bYj3GxSrnVS0o/MhZrrSsBQfB1wCfWQ4t
>> s1C18fhlK/WVt5QcfgsWXU0=
>> =BrHV
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>>
>> http://archives.postgresql.org
>>
>>
>

Ned Lilly wrote:
> Thanks for posting this, Dirk (and Peter). I don't think any of us
> would disagree that different models yield different results, and that
> the Postgres community model is more focused on developing a great
> product than (necessarily) a single great company. However, I'm curious
> about Rod's market share comment - is that documented in any meaningful
> way?

It's great that they posted it, but they obviously don't understand
PostgreSQL. It's doesn't have a business model :P, it isn't supposed to.

Joshua D. Drake

On Feb 16, 2008 6:19 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
>
> P.S. Hi EDB.

Hi Command Prompt :-)

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Oracle-compatible database company