Re: On what we want to support: travel?

On Thu, Nov 02, 2006 at 09:21:30PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:

> We are a large project, but as large as our user base is we still
> can't muster a better answer to the "Alexa 100" question than "uh,
> yeah a bunch of them use postgres but we can't tell you who except
> for these one guys who aren't willing to give any details".

Nothing about going to conferences and speaking in front of audiences
is going to change that.  The people who use Oracle and DB2 would
_also_ keep that quiet, if they could.  If you read the license
agreements, though, such users aren't allowed to be silent about it.
We simply don't have the leverage to out people.

> To paraphrase Theo Schlossnagle at OSCon, "If you want to run a TB size
> database on Oracle, you pick up the phone and you can call 30 people to get
> help with your problem without a lot of effort. If you want to do it on
> Postgres, you just can't find that level of public experience with the
> problems you're going to face."

But what makes you think, even for a second, that funding people to
go and talk to audiences will change that?  It will change the
profile of those individuals, of course, but it is far from plain to
me that such funds couldn't be better spent.  For instance, if the
above is the problem you're trying to solve, why not fund educational
materials that can be distributed online for people trying to run TB
sized databases?  Or find a way to build better (paying?  I dunno)
community-based support.  (Moreover, I have to say, my confidence in
the answers I get out of the Postgres community is orders of
magnitude greater than the confidence I ever had in answers given to
me by companies who were in the business of selling me more
consultation.  More is not always better.)

A
--
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what
you told them to.  That actually seems sort of quaint now.
        --J.D. Baldwin