MySQL gets $19.5 MM

Le Mercredi 04 Juin 2003 14:49, Ned Lilly a écrit :

This, combined with the admittedly weird SAP DB deal, is bad news for
PostgreSQL. Today, it's clearly the superior product. It will be tomorrow
too. But Betamax was pretty neat too.
PostgreSQL needs more corporate support. Case studies are great, but
someone needs to step into the void that Great Bridge created.

Betamax failed because it was developped by a single company (Sony) on its
own. MySQL do not have a community of developpers. PostgreSQL is a world
community. So why do you say PostgreSQL is going to be the next Betamax?

Furthermore, do you know the "burn-rate" of MySQL (the money spent everyday to
survive)? Answer: probably 19,5 million dollars devided by a few years. And
what will happen when MySQL runs out of fuel?

Cheers,
Jean-Michel

On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 08:49, Ned Lilly wrote:

Don't know if anyone's posted this yet...

This, combined with the admittedly weird SAP DB deal, is bad news for PostgreSQL. Today, it's clearly the superior product. It will be tomorrow too. But Betamax was pretty neat too.

PostgreSQL needs more corporate support. Case studies are great, but someone needs to step into the void that Great Bridge created.

If you can get the venture capital I (and a few others around here)
would be more than willing to try to fill that void. I think we could do
it with far less than 19 million too.

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Jean-Michel,

Please cc: this to the original poster:

PostgreSQL. Today, it's clearly the superior product. It will be

It is really? According to which criteria? Clearly more popular, certainly.
However, I may point out that MS Access still has more installations than
MySQL ...and nobody is calling MS Access a "superior database product".

tomorrow too. But Betamax was pretty neat too.
PostgreSQL needs more corporate support. Case studies are great, but
someone needs to step into the void that Great Bridge created.

To be completely blunt: MySQL the database will not easily survive the demise
of MySQL AB. Their development is still centrally and very corporately
controlled; they are more a commercial company using the GPL as a
distribution mechanism than a real Open Source project. And while Open
Source is hard to beat in the marketplace, MySQL AB is easily beaten or
consumed by larger, fiercer commercial competitors. Particularly since the
company has shown anything but astuteness in their commercial relationships.

Think about this: What would happen if Microsoft or Oracle purchased MySQL AB
in order to shut it down? What would happen to the MySQL Project? The same
thing that's happening to the SAP-DB project?

PostgreSQL has survived the deaths and/or acquisition of several companies,
most notably Great Bridge. In this way, PostgreSQL is just like Linux ...
many people commercialize it but nobody owns it.

From my perspective, Great Bridge was, in fact, a problem for us because our
project became associated with GB in the public mind ... meaning that when GB
shut down due to a bad business model, a lot of people got the impression
that PostgreSQL was shutting down too. We've been quite a while recovering
from that, and MySQL's public profile has surged ahead in the meantime.

I would ... or perhaps will ... be nice to get some corporate money again for
useful things like trade show booths. But we want to avoid the impression
ever again that PostgreSQL is owned by any one company. (Thankfully,
PostgreSQL Inc. has been very careful in this regard)

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Josh Berkus wrote:

Jean-Michel,

Please cc: this to the original poster:

He did.

PostgreSQL. Today, it's clearly the superior product. It will be

It is really? According to which criteria? Clearly more popular, certainly.
However, I may point out that MS Access still has more installations than
MySQL ...and nobody is calling MS Access a "superior database product".

Er... I said PostgreSQL was the superior product. Re-read the original post.

To be completely blunt: MySQL the database will not easily survive the demise
of MySQL AB.

Agreed. But $19MM ought to buy them a little more time.

Regards,
Ned

MySQL AB is going 'toes up'? Or was that a 'what if'?

Josh Berkus wrote:

Dennis,

MySQL AB is going 'toes up'? Or was that a 'what if'?

That was a "what if".

My point is simply that:

Given: MySQL Project is completely dependant on MySQL AB
Given: MySQL AB is a small company.
Given: MySQL AB has demonstrated near-catastrophic bad business
decisions in the past (i.e. NuSphere).
Given: MySQL AB just received $19 mil in venture capital, which the
funders will expect a large return on -- and promptly.
Given: Even well-managed small companies are frequently subsumed by giant
software corporations.
---------------------------------------
Conclusion: MySQL users should be worried about what might happen to MySQL,
the project, in the future, based on what happens to MySQL AB. And they,
like SAP-DB, should be prepared to fork the GPL code.

--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

all very good points. And I felt a little bit of bile in my mouth, myself, when I realized, several years ago, the true development and business model behind MySQL. Also, the HODGEPODGE way they added features from other development projects.

But others are right. We need someone like IBM is to Linux, or Apple is to Konqueror. Someone who puts a lot of time and money into the product for their own selfish interests, but then releases it.

Josh Berkus wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Gearon [mailto:gearond@cvc.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 10:57 AM
To: josh@agliodbs.com
Cc: jm.poure@freesurf.fr; pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org;
pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [GENERAL] MySQL gets $19.5 MM

all very good points. And I felt a little bit of bile in my
mouth, myself, when I realized, several years ago, the true
development and business model behind MySQL. Also, the
HODGEPODGE way they added features from other development projects.

But others are right. We need someone like IBM is to Linux,
or Apple is to Konqueror. Someone who puts a lot of time and
money into the product for their own selfish interests, but
then releases it.

Isn't Redhat doing that?

I heard they were working on a complete NIST validation. That's a
stupendous effort.

For Postgres?

Dann Corbit wrote:

Dennis,

But others are right. We need someone like IBM is to Linux, or Apple is to

Konqueror. Someone who puts a lot of time and money into the product for
their own selfish interests, but then releases it.

I'd like a little funding, just for Trade shows. Heck, I'd go to 6 shows a
year for PostgreSQL, if someone would pay me to do it.

But getting dependant on funding from one company for development is
dangerous. Talk to the Apache folks about their relationship to IBM, or the
Mozilla folks about AOL, or the Gnome folks, or anyone on OpenOffice.org
about Sun ... even where the project works well (like those) the participants
spend a *lot* of time politicking with the sponsor -- some months, more time
than you spend developing.

We are gratefully free of that, and you don't know how good that is until
you've had to deal with the opposite.

--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Gearon [mailto:gearond@cvc.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 11:13 AM
To: Dann Corbit
Cc: josh@agliodbs.com; jm.poure@freesurf.fr;
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [GENERAL] MySQL gets $19.5 MM

For Postgres?

Maybe I was hallucinating. I thought I remembered that someone at
Redhat was going to work through the NIST validation suite, but I can't
remember where I read it and I can't find the message.

On Tuesday 10 Jun 2003 7:55 pm, Dann Corbit wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Gearon [mailto:gearond@cvc.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 11:13 AM
To: Dann Corbit
Cc: josh@agliodbs.com; jm.poure@freesurf.fr;
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [GENERAL] MySQL gets $19.5 MM

For Postgres?

Maybe I was hallucinating. I thought I remembered that someone at
Redhat was going to work through the NIST validation suite, but I can't
remember where I read it and I can't find the message.

I seem to remember someone from RedHat asking a question about some fairly
obscure SQL-compliance problem recently. Something with aggregates in
sub-selects? No official announcements I know of though.

--
Richard Huxton

Dann Corbit wrote:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Gearon [mailto:gearond@cvc.net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 11:13 AM
To: Dann Corbit
Cc: josh@agliodbs.com; jm.poure@freesurf.fr;
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [GENERAL] MySQL gets $19.5 MM

For Postgres?

Maybe I was hallucinating. I thought I remembered that someone at
Redhat was going to work through the NIST validation suite, but I can't
remember where I read it and I can't find the message.

The report came from Tom mentioning NIST failures in testing,
particularly related to how we handle aggregates in HAVING subqueries.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Quoting Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>:

To be completely blunt: MySQL the database will not easily survive the
demise
of MySQL AB. Their development is still centrally and very corporately
controlled; they are more a commercial company using the GPL as a
distribution mechanism than a real Open Source project. And while Open
Source is hard to beat in the marketplace, MySQL AB is easily beaten or
consumed by larger, fiercer commercial competitors. Particularly since the
company has shown anything but astuteness in their commercial relationships.

Think about this: What would happen if Microsoft or Oracle purchased MySQL AB

in order to shut it down? What would happen to the MySQL Project? The same

thing that's happening to the SAP-DB project?

To be even more current- just look at what is going on with Oracle vs.
PeopleSoft & JB Edwards

http://quicken.com/investments/news/story/?story=NewsStory/dowJones/20030609/ON200306091828001243.var&amp;p=PSFT

Toward the ends Oracle clearly states that they would stop selling PeopleSort
and eventually more the PeopleSoft customer base to Oracle!

PostgreSQL has survived the deaths and/or acquisition of several companies,
most notably Great Bridge. In this way, PostgreSQL is just like Linux ...
many people commercialize it but nobody owns it.

From my perspective, Great Bridge was, in fact, a problem for us because our

project became associated with GB in the public mind ... meaning that when GB

shut down due to a bad business model, a lot of people got the impression
that PostgreSQL was shutting down too. We've been quite a while recovering
from that, and MySQL's public profile has surged ahead in the meantime.

I would ... or perhaps will ... be nice to get some corporate money again for

useful things like trade show booths. But we want to avoid the impression
ever again that PostgreSQL is owned by any one company. (Thankfully,
PostgreSQL Inc. has been very careful in this regard)

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

So now here's a question- if I have this right. The goal is (maybe/probably?)
to be corporate support but not coporately owned, yes? If so, them lets say that I
wanted research PostgreSQL in the context of moving to it from say a MS-SQL or
Oracle product. A quick search of postgresql.com (which is probably would Joe
Tech at Joe Business would start) leaves out the product support question
(though does answer the licensing question which I think is the most important
piece).

Budget conscious people are **starting** to realize that they are
paying for paper year after year- and it doesn't make financial sense
(regardless of whether or not you can afford to pay for paper every year). As
much as I would like to see Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, Mozilla, etc. everywhere
(or at least where I have to "work") they are not going to be for everyone- nor
should they be.

I'm curious to hear what other people are experiencing but for me everytime I
mention an Open Source product the question seems to come down to vendor
support- they don't seem to realize that you can in many cases get a quesiton
answered via email or in a newsgroup more directly and more quickly then if you
are paying for a support contract. Companies from what I see and experience
here in the states generally seem to be more interested in a commercial product
that does 70% of what they need instead of getting the people who can develope
in house 100% need (and maybe 100% or that they **want** too).

Regardless though, in the end people will be
smarter and invest their money in people and the componets to build your
application/computing environment. Those products have to be marketed
(unfortunately?) so the question I have is, other than the advocacy site(s) does
PostgreSQL have any of those so-called "tear sheets" that might catch some CIO's
eye? Perhaps I'm not asking in the right forum but even though MySQL getting a
cash influx does not worry me, it would be nice to include something like that
in my proposals if for no other reason than to get the word out (regardless of
whether or not I win the business). Would it be approppriate for my company to
do something and submit it? It seem like that approach might muster up support
from companies who do use Pg.

Sorry for the long windedness but this thread has got me thinking. I'm always
looking for feedback on how I can educate prospective clients to the vast
non-mainstream and non-big-corporate technology that is availble.

-$0.73

BTW, does one financially contribute directly to the development of Pg? Is
there something set up for that? Just asking for the future...

--
Keith C. Perry
Director of Networks & Applications
VCSN, Inc.
http://vcsn.com

____________________________________
This email account is being host by:
VCSN, Inc : http://vcsn.com

"Dann Corbit" <DCorbit@connx.com> writes:

From: Dennis Gearon [mailto:gearond@cvc.net]
But others are right. We need someone like IBM is to Linux,
or Apple is to Konqueror. Someone who puts a lot of time and
money into the product for their own selfish interests, but
then releases it.

Isn't Redhat doing that?

Red Hat is putting a fair amount of money into PG development: they're
paying my salary, for example, and several other people who are not as
visible on the lists. But they aren't presently spending a dime on
promoting Postgres to the world. *That* is what I miss about Great
Bridge; they had the money and the inclination to do marketing efforts.
I think the project benefited greatly from the exposure it got from
GB's efforts.

I heard they were working on a complete NIST validation. That's a
stupendous effort.

We have a couple of college interns going through the NIST validation
suite. It'll take a while to finish, but I think it'll be valuable.
As someone else pointed out, it's already turned up one
previously-unknown (to me anyway) compliance bug.

regards, tom lane
Red Hat Database project

What if smaller not-quite-trade-shows were held in different cities? I would be
*very* interested in sponsering short seminars that simply market Pg and maybe
show some demo's and discuss thinks like migrate to Pg, Administration, IDE
options, etc.

I used to rent meeting rooms at hotels for another venture and that is a pretty
cheap thing to do (include the coffee, tea, cheese, yada-yada-yada). The
questions is how to get folks to attend...

..sound like mail stuffing party to me!

Quoting Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>:

Dennis,

But others are right. We need someone like IBM is to Linux, or Apple is to

Konqueror. Someone who puts a lot of time and money into the product for
their own selfish interests, but then releases it.

I'd like a little funding, just for Trade shows. Heck, I'd go to 6 shows a
year for PostgreSQL, if someone would pay me to do it.

But getting dependant on funding from one company for development is
dangerous. Talk to the Apache folks about their relationship to IBM, or the

Mozilla folks about AOL, or the Gnome folks, or anyone on OpenOffice.org
about Sun ... even where the project works well (like those) the participants

spend a *lot* of time politicking with the sponsor -- some months, more time

than you spend developing.

We are gratefully free of that, and you don't know how good that is until
you've had to deal with the opposite.

--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org

--
Keith C. Perry
Director of Networks & Applications
VCSN, Inc.
http://vcsn.com

____________________________________
This email account is being host by:
VCSN, Inc : http://vcsn.com

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Network Administrator wrote:

What if smaller not-quite-trade-shows were held in different cities? I would be
*very* interested in sponsering short seminars that simply market Pg and maybe
show some demo's and discuss thinks like migrate to Pg, Administration, IDE
options, etc.

I used to rent meeting rooms at hotels for another venture and that is a pretty
cheap thing to do (include the coffee, tea, cheese, yada-yada-yada). The
questions is how to get folks to attend...

..sound like mail stuffing party to me!

Never underestimate how much you can do just by being a part of your local
community. I'm giving a quick session tonight here in Denver to compare
MySQL, Postgresql and Firebird.

While I personally prefer Postgresql there are some things MySQL is
particularly suited to as well, and some things that firebird is suited to
as well.

A fair and valid comparison of their features is a useful way of "selling"
Postgresql to the people who need it.

Keith,

What if smaller not-quite-trade-shows were held in different cities? I

would be

*very* interested in sponsering short seminars that simply market Pg and

maybe

show some demo's and discuss thinks like migrate to Pg, Administration, IDE
options, etc.

Sounds great to me ... think we could organize one as a BOF for LWE-SF?

I'll talk and recruit attendees if you'll set up the facilities ....

--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Sean Chittenden wrote:

[removed general@ ]

What if smaller not-quite-trade-shows were held in different
cities? I would be *very* interested in sponsering short seminars
that simply market Pg and maybe show some demo's and discuss
thinks like migrate to Pg, Administration, IDE options, etc.

I used to rent meeting rooms at hotels for another venture and
that is a pretty cheap thing to do (include the coffee, tea,
cheese, yada-yada-yada). The questions is how to get folks to
attend...

..sound like mail stuffing party to me!

Never underestimate how much you can do just by being a part of your
local community. I'm giving a quick session tonight here in Denver
to compare MySQL, Postgresql and Firebird.

While I personally prefer Postgresql there are some things MySQL is
particularly suited to as well, and some things that firebird is
suited to as well.

A fair and valid comparison of their features is a useful way of
"selling" Postgresql to the people who need it.

Do you have any notes on the three that you could post? -sc

Yes, but they're just kinda scatter brained stuff right now. I'm a bit
rushed at work this week, so if I forget remind me next week.