In the coreteams response to the Great Bridge, LLC press note
we mentioned, that individuals are already in negotiations
with them and will make their announcement at the appropriate
time. I'm known in the community to make huge postings, so
don't expect this to be a short one. Poeple who know me also
know, that it's important to read until the end before
hitting the "reply" button. So keep your fingers under
control.
I will join Great Bridge, LLC as Senior Software Engineer for
PostgreSQL development.
I totally understand that some people have mixed feelings
about the involvement of profit oriented companies into open-
source projects. Especially if steering committee members
are employed by those companies. The coreteam discovered that
problem very soon, and during our meeting in San Francisco,
we discussed this and agreed on a set of simple rules.
1. Employment, financial involvement or other relationship
to organizations, having commercial interest in
PostgreSQL, is basically not in conflict with a
membership in the steering committee.
2. To limit the possibility of problems, the number of
steering commitee members, fulltime employed by one
company, is limited. With the current situation of having
only six core members, we decided to limit this to two
persons.
3. The steering commitee as a group preserves the right
(that it allways had) to kick anyone out of itself if the
commercial relationship of a member is becoming a
problem.
These are fairly simple and, from my point of view, obviously
correct rules. Someone having an axe to grind can basically
do two different things, try to gain an advantage for his
private or corporate interests or try to advance PostgreSQL
in general and possibly having to share the profit with
others. We all know that open-source projects allways can
thread off, Joining again later costs too many resources so
in reality theres only one way to be successful in the long
run. The six people of core IMHO don't make enough substance
of development capacity to carry on this project. So we need
the entire community to be as successful as we where in the
past time. And I'm sure the important developers will choose
the OPEN way in the case of a split, so taking things
proprietary is a deadend street for me.
The reason why I believe Landmark/Great Bridge is accepting
these rules of open-source is, that in one of our meetings
with Landmark in Frisco, Al Ritter stated "your open-source
project has been successful for more than three years, so
it's not us to tell you how to run it". It was only one of
many statements, during many hours we met with Landmarks
corporate staff. For me, it was a very important one.
I nailed that point later in a private conversation. Great
Bridge does not want to gain control over the PostgreSQL
project. In contrast they are sure such a control from a
commercial entity would kill or split it, and a split is as
bad as a kill because it means we would loose power we
definitely need to compete with the big boys. What they
actually see is a market, where customers are willing to pay
for services, an open-source community of sparetime
developers cannot offer. I don't want to tell any details
now, but be sure, as a 10+ years experienced IT consultant I
have some ideas what such a company can offer to make money,
and all that is good stuff for PostgreSQL itself.
My personal committment to the entire PostgreSQL community is
this:
I join Great Bridge to spend more time than I ever had, to
work for the PostgreSQL project. My relationship with a
commercial company, interested in PostgreSQL, shall not be in
conflict with my steering commitee membership, otherwise I'll
immediately step back from that, becoming the ordinary
developer I where before. I'll insist that improvements to
the database system, done by Great Bridge, become full part
of the free, open-source distribution (I know howto, but I
don't want to be responsible for maintaining a separate
source branch). I preserve the right to share any idea or
solution to solve a problem, reported to me in person or any
of the official PostgreSQL mailing lists - even if my
employer offers services to solve this kind of problem.
The last sentence seems to be the most difficult one. In
fact, it isn't. Our community did a good job in the past,
solving many "customer" problems in time for nothing. I'm
proud of that and it must stay as is, because it is essential
to the nature of free open-source. A company that wants to
play the proprietary support-game on the big boys home turf
should start there, but without me as quarterback. If we, as
the community that we are, cannot offer any solution until
some release, a support company under contract must jump in
to satisfy the customer. This is why customers pay for these
contracts - there are fulltime developers (the defense line)
to solve them NOW, instead of some yet undefined, future
release schedule. There's nothing wrong with this, the
customer gets instantly the solution he payed for and the
support company contributes the solution to the community (to
get rid of regular maintenance efford). It is our challenge
to ensure that these contributions advance PostgreSQL in the
right direction.
Our usual "customer" was the the private or for educational
purpose user in the past. Companies, using our stuff, are
there as well, but they allways appeared as some person,
using it for "some" project. To frankly use Bruce's wording,
we entered through the backdoor.
In the future, the "customer" can be the one we have up to
date as well as the companies we enterd through the front
door. They might get help from everywhere, maybe inhouse or
for free from the developers community, but that's the way of
free open-source, and one of the reasons why our "customer"
choose our product. It's OPEN, so his future decisions remain
open.
If my personal view about the meaning of the word "open"
isn't totally lost here, let's do it "all together now",
including commercial partners who are willing to accept and
support the rules of free and open-source communities like
this one - that I felt to be part of so far.
Jan
--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== [EMAIL PROTECTED] #
