Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Philip Warner wrote: The fear is that this may distort other priorities - hence why increased transparency in decision making is important. If Bruce, Tom Jan make a design decision, then chances are it's going to be pretty good. The problem is it will/may be seen as a GB decision. I don't know ... the recent discussion in -hackers on the whole ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN tends to show that even those "in the pay of" don't necessarily agree :)
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
"Ross J. Reedstrom" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So, I am really saying that core doesn't do much. You non-core folks aren't missing anything. Yeah, that's what you say in public ... There is no cabal! It's true that very little goes on on the private core mailing list, and we try to keep it that way. I think that most of the power that core has (such as it is) is that people on pghackers are willing to defer to us on decisions like what the release schedule should be. There are a dozen or more non-core people with CVS write access, so it's not like core is tightly controlling what happens to the code. I think ideally our role is one of cat herders, as you put it --- making the kinds of decisions that a group of dozens or hundreds can't make effectively. But the long-term direction of the project is largely determined by what the individual CVS committers choose to work on. In that sense, a core member has no more power than any non-core committer. (Case in point: Peter E. has had more influence on what 7.1 will look like than most of core ;-).) When you look at it from that point of view, power comes from having time to work on the code. In that sense, now that Great Bridge is paying me to work full-time on Postgres, I personally may be the most dangerous loose cannon on the deck. (Jan is less dangerous right at the moment only because he's distracted by moving concerns. Once he's settled again in Norfolk, look out...) Outer joins will be in 7.1 because *I* decided that would be a good thing to work on --- this wasn't a core decision, nor one imposed on me by Great Bridge. I doubt anyone will complain too hard about that particular choice, but further down the road I might make more debatable choices about how to spend my time. I agree 100% with your comments that openness of decision-making is a critical element in keeping the trust of the community. But looking at it as just an issue of core vs non-core is missing some part of the problem. Everyone who contributes code has a responsibility, proportionate to how much work they're doing, to ensure that the rest of the community understands and approves of what they're doing. regards, tom lane
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
At 22:12 13/10/00 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote: The majority of core discussions are closed because either we need to decide on a central direction for the project (release date) These are the things that you should consider making more transparent. or we need to discuss something that would embarrass someone if it were publically known. Personal opinions are of course private. Can you think of an example of a secret embarrassing item that has affected the direction of the project? I'd be fascinated! You know, we have to take people aside once and a while and get them back on course. Of course, we do that for core members too. In fact, we built a shed outside especially for Jan, who is in Poland giving a speech and can't possibly respond in a timely manner. :-) -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Philip Warner wrote: The fear is that this may distort other priorities - hence why increased transparency in decision making is important. If Bruce, Tom Jan make a design decision, then chances are it's going to be pretty good. The problem is it will/may be seen as a GB decision. I don't know ... the recent discussion in -hackers on the whole ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN tends to show that even those "in the pay of" don't necessarily agree :) Man, Tom, our cover is working perfectly. Let's disagree on something again. That will really convince them. :-) -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
I think ideally our role is one of cat herders, as you put it --- making the kinds of decisions that a group of dozens or hundreds can't make effectively. But the long-term direction of the project is largely determined by what the individual CVS committers choose to work on. In that sense, a core member has no more power than any non-core committer. (Case in point: Peter E. has had more influence on what 7.1 will look like than most of core ;-).) Jan says that if I start coding more, GB will have to hire more developers to clean up after me. Now, is that supposed to make me feel valued? :-) -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Adam Lang wrote: Ah but remember... what is a "better RDBMS" to a company may be different than one for the open source community. I'm not sure I see that... The one place where GB can get burned is if they spend lots of time/money implementing a feature and then attempt to recoup their investment by holding said feature back from the PGSQL source tree. If someone else duplicates that feature and it is accepted into the tree before GB has covered their expenses GB would now be out some amount of money and have at worst, a continual wart they would have to maintain outside the tree, or at best a consolidation of features with the opensource version of the feature. Having redundant code would be somewhere in the middle. /runon The real question is this: At some point in the future the PostgreSQL project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely with the commercial ventures working with them. Will this cause problems? Will such a decision cause a split? -- | Matthew N. Dodd | '78 Datsun 280Z | '75 Volvo 164E | FreeBSD/NetBSD | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 2 x '84 Volvo 245DL| ix86,sparc,pmax | | http://www.jurai.net/~winter | This Space For Rent | ISO8802.5 4ever |
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
"Matthew N. Dodd" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The one place where GB can get burned is if they spend lots of time/money implementing a feature and then attempt to recoup their investment by holding said feature back from the PGSQL source tree. I can say with a good deal of confidence that this is not part of GB's vision of how to play the game. (Can't speak for pgsql.com or any other potential commercial players, however.) GB is building their company on the assumption that open source is the best way to develop software, so it makes no sense to do any proprietary-style development. I am more concerned about conflicts like "well, today I could work on feature-or-bug-fix A that some paying customer of GB's is requesting, or I could work on feature-or-bug-fix B that IMHO would be of wider interest --- but isn't currently being requested by a paying customer". Or worse, "paying customer FOO wants some feature that I think would be actively bad for most people". To the extent that paying customers are representative of the whole community, this shouldn't be a huge problem, but I'm sure that it will come up. The real question is this: At some point in the future the PostgreSQL project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely with the commercial ventures working with them. Will this cause problems? Hm, I'm having a hard time visualizing why this might happen. Could you provide an example? regards, tom lane
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Correct...I'm not saying corporate is going to try to proprietize (or however you spell it :)) it. That I will say I don't think can happen... (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also, correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it). I mentioned off list a possible example. MySQL and/or PHP. They are open source, but their interest is in corporate. They go in directions that is not in the open source best interest, but in corporate best interest... granted, they aren't the same situation as postgres either, but the concern would be that if 50% or over of a core steering/direction group were employed by a single company, some direction may inadvertently taken that serves the company better than the open source. Also, this is not an attack that it would be done with evil intent. But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :) Adam Lang Systems Engineer Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company - Original Message - From: "Tom Lane" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Matthew N. Dodd" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 3:31 AM Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job I can say with a good deal of confidence that this is not part of GB's vision of how to play the game. (Can't speak for pgsql.com or any other potential commercial players, however.) GB is building their company on the assumption that open source is the best way to develop software, so it makes no sense to do any proprietary-style development. I am more concerned about conflicts like "well, today I could work on feature-or-bug-fix A that some paying customer of GB's is requesting, or I could work on feature-or-bug-fix B that IMHO would be of wider interest --- but isn't currently being requested by a paying customer". Or worse, "paying customer FOO wants some feature that I think would be actively bad for most people". To the extent that paying customers are representative of the whole community, this shouldn't be a huge problem, but I'm sure that it will come up. The real question is this: At some point in the future the PostgreSQL project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely with the commercial ventures working with them. Will this cause problems? Hm, I'm having a hard time visualizing why this might happen. Could you provide an example? regards, tom lane
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Adam Lang wrote: (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also, correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it). PostgreSQL is not under the GPL. PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD license -- which means there is no license restriction on 'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code. But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :) This is the real safeguard. -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL. Adam Lang Systems Engineer Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company - Original Message - From: "Lamar Owen" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 10:17 AM Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job Adam Lang wrote: (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also, correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it). PostgreSQL is not under the GPL. PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD license -- which means there is no license restriction on 'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code. But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :) This is the real safeguard. -- Lamar Owen WGCR Internet Radio 1 Peter 4:11
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Adam Lang wrote:
May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL.
what a narrow view on open source ... most core internet open source
software is *not* GPL ... sendmail, INN, bind, isc-dhcp, apache, X11Rn,
etc ...
Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
- Original Message -
From: "Lamar Owen" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Adam Lang wrote:
(Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free
also,
correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on
that
is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).
PostgreSQL is not under the GPL. PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD
license -- which means there is no license restriction on
'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code.
But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold
on
reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)
This is the real safeguard.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: [EMAIL PROTECTED] secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
"Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL. correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on Of course both lincenses can be the basis of propriatery efforts(GPL and Apache(BSD style licenses). My company used to prefere investing in GPL SW because of the lack of the adv. clause. regards, Gunnar
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On 13 Oct 2000, Gunnar R|nning wrote: "Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL. correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on Of course both lincenses can be the basis of propriatery efforts(GPL and Apache(BSD style licenses). My company used to prefere investing in GPL SW because of the lack of the adv. clause. This is sort of a red herring. BSD style is just that, BSD style. _most_ BSD-style licenses (and _the_ BSD license of Regents of UC) removed the 'obnoxious advertising' clause. There are other reasons to prefer BSD-style over GPL, but this isn't one.
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Bottom line is we're not sure what to do now. Opinions from the floor, anyone? From the lowly end of the floor... for what I am concerned, I'm not worried about the involvment of the core team. Instead, I'm happy that companies like GB and Postgres Inc have been founded. I'm not an active member of open source community (if not for advocating it), but just for the lack of skill. I know RS's and ESR's works, I think I got the ideas, but I think that "commercial support" is useful for the quality of the projects, and not detrimental. I really think that there is no possibility that a commercial company based on a open source project could steer away from the good of the project. The equation is simple: the more the "product" is good, the more the company would penetrate the market. We all know that marketing and FUD approaches are incompatable with open source projects, just the quality of the product can give people the reason to adopt it. What should we fear? That GB will purpusedly put some limitations or bugs in tha code, so they could gain more on supporting it (ya 'now, somebody says that some guy have earned billions following this strategy ;-))? But this is simply not feasible. They don't sell the product, so they could not gain on "new realeses" and "service packs". And who could hide bugs in an open source project and call them "features"? At the most, as Tom said, they will be more focused to hunt bugs and add features basing on requests made by paying customers. Well, those are nonetheless bugs that will be corrected and new features that will be added, and we all will benefit for them. There's good chance that they are the same bugs and same features that some of OUR customers (I'm meaning "we" as in "independent consultants and developers that use open source projects as tools") will ask for. And this way the people that are working on that will be also well payed (er, I don't know the payrolls, I'm just hoping that they are good...), and I can't see anything bad in that! No, as I said, commercial companies investing in open source development can only do good. just my 0.02 Euro ;-) and good luck to all core members for their new jobs! /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Fabrizio Ermini Alternate E-mail: C.so Umberto, 7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] loc. Meleto Valdarno Mail on GSM: (keep it short!) 52020 Cavriglia (AR) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Bruce Momjian writes: After careful consideration, I have decided to accept a job with Great Bridge. Whatever happened to this: Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 15:19:48 -0400 From: Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ross J. Reedstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: PostgreSQL-general [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Steering committee responce to Great Bridge LLC : One thing we have agreed to is that there must not be an unseemly fraction : of core members working for the same company. With six people on core, : probably about two working at the same company would be a reasonable : limit. Excellent question. I suggested leaving core, but that would still mean more than 1/3 of core people would be in one company. Our short-term solution is to keep going until we see some problems. Our long-term strategy is to increase the size of the core group. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
* Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001010 09:47] wrote: Bruce Momjian writes: After careful consideration, I have decided to accept a job with Great Bridge. Whatever happened to this: Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 15:19:48 -0400 From: Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ross J. Reedstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: PostgreSQL-general [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Steering committee responce to Great Bridge LLC : One thing we have agreed to is that there must not be an unseemly fraction : of core members working for the same company. With six people on core, : probably about two working at the same company would be a reasonable : limit. I think Great Bridge makes a shining example of an exception to that rule, the impression I got from the developers already there as well as the managment was very good. And although I loath to speak for others, you wouldn't think that Bruce would take this position if it somehow compromised the integrity of the project somehow, would you? This is Bruce's choice, but if this was somehow put up to a vote, how many of you would like to have him working full time on Postgresql alongside several other highly skilled developers and compensated for his work rather than trying to squeeze it into his everyday life like so many other opensource authors with "real jobs" on the side? -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
[GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Bruce Momjian writes: After careful consideration, I have decided to accept a job with Great Bridge. Whatever happened to this: From: Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] : One thing we have agreed to is that there must not be an unseemly fraction : of core members working for the same company. With six people on core, : probably about two working at the same company would be a reasonable : limit. I knew someone was going to bring that up ;-). There's already been discussion of this point among core. What we now have is three core members employed by Great Bridge and the other three either fully or partly employed by PostgreSQL Inc. I should mention that the Great Bridge hires are full-time employment, while not all the PostgreSQL Inc.'s are, so the Great Bridge group is more in voliation of the original plan. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
I think Great Bridge makes a shining example of an exception to that rule, the impression I got from the developers already there as well as the managment was very good. And although I loath to speak for others, you wouldn't think that Bruce would take this position if it somehow compromised the integrity of the project somehow, would you? This is Bruce's choice, but if this was somehow put up to a vote, how many of you would like to have him working full time on Postgresql alongside several other highly skilled developers and compensated for his work rather than trying to squeeze it into his everyday life like so many other opensource authors with "real jobs" on the side? Actually, I have written a draft article that outlines some of the dynamics of companies supporting open-source software. It is attached. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026 Title: The Behavior of Open-Source Support Companies The Behavior of Open-Source Support Companies Bruce Momjian DRAFT Introduction Open-source support companies face unique challenges. This article explores a few of them: The unusual inter-company issues faced by open-source support companies. The paradox of why, sometimes, doing the best for your company may be the wrong thing to do. Why companies should work together to preserve their shared open-source asset. Open-Source As a Shared Resource Traditional companies have their own marketing, sales, research/development, and manufacturing departments. They are self-contained organizations that share very little with other companies in the same market. Open-source support companies are different. The open-source software they support is a shared resource. All support companies rely on the health of that shared resource for their livelihood, and because they rely on it, companies take actions to maximize the value they derive from that shared resource. However, these actions can make things worse. Self-interest and Non-optimal Results -- The Prisoner's Dilemma How can acting in your self-interest actually be counter to your self-interest? The prisoner's dilemma illustrates such a case. Two prisoners are captured by police and placed in separate cells. The police have enough evidence to convict each of a minor crime that will result in a one-year prison term. However, the police know the prisoners have committed a more serious crime. Each prisoner is told that if he confesses and the other prisoner does not confess, he will go free, and the other will receive a twenty-year prison term. If they both confess, they will each receive a ten years prison term. For each prisoner, the decision in their self-interest is to confess. Each prisoner does not know what the other will do. However, confessing produces better results no matter what the other prisoner does: ``Suppose the other prisoner confesses. If I confess too, I get ten years instead of twenty.'' ``Suppose the other prisoner does not confess. If I confess, I go free instead of serving one year in jail.'' The interesting effect of the prisoner's dilemma is that each prisoner, acting in their own self-interest, produces a worse result, two ten-year jail terms, than if both had not confessed and gotten only one-year jail terms. The prisoner's dilemma, first formulated by Albert W. Tucker in the 1950s, has been applied to many fields, including economics, foreign policy. and philosophy[Blumen]. The prisoner's dilemma even applies to open-source support companies. Each company is like a prisoner in a cell. Each wants to dominate the open-source community, and fears other companies will do the same. Unfortunately, domination by multiple companies only diminishes the health of the open-source community, yielding a worse result than if they had not acted. Perhaps dominate is too strong a word, but companies do position themselves to receive maximum benefit. When all companies do that, they can destroy the shared resource they rely upon. In prisoner's dilemma terms, they receive ten years in jail instead of one. They reason, ``If I dominate the shared resource, and the other companies don't, I win. If they do, and I don't, my business suffers.'' Unfortunately, if they both do, the community suffers, and the companies along with them. Company Behavior The good news that the prisoner's dilemma is not played just once. It is played by open-source companies over and over again, in the little and big things they do that affect their shared resource. And with repetition, there is hope. When companies realize how their actions to control the shared resource cause other companies to do the same, an arms race occurs. And once they realize that, they can start to seek a truce, where
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
I think it comes down to more of an issue of "conflict of interest". Worry that core members will have more loyalty to the project in view of their employers as opposed to the view of the project itself. That risk is increased ten-fold when multiple members are in the same company. It is tough what to say because there are basically two camps: make a rule now to prevent possible issues later on, or not worry too much about it and deal with it if an issue develops. Adam Lang Systems Engineer Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company - Original Message - From: "Alfred Perlstein" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Peter Eisentraut" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "Bruce Momjian" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL-general" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 1:09 PM Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job * Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001010 09:47] wrote: Bruce Momjian writes: After careful consideration, I have decided to accept a job with Great Bridge. Whatever happened to this: Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 15:19:48 -0400 From: Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ross J. Reedstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: PostgreSQL-general [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Steering committee responce to Great Bridge LLC : One thing we have agreed to is that there must not be an unseemly fraction : of core members working for the same company. With six people on core, : probably about two working at the same company would be a reasonable : limit. I think Great Bridge makes a shining example of an exception to that rule, the impression I got from the developers already there as well as the managment was very good. And although I loath to speak for others, you wouldn't think that Bruce would take this position if it somehow compromised the integrity of the project somehow, would you? This is Bruce's choice, but if this was somehow put up to a vote, how many of you would like to have him working full time on Postgresql alongside several other highly skilled developers and compensated for his work rather than trying to squeeze it into his everyday life like so many other opensource authors with "real jobs" on the side? -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Dave Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Well to calm any fears of Great Bridge taking over what exactly are the terms of employment? Are the developers merely continuing on with what they were working on and now getting paid for it, or is Great Bridge saying here are the projects we want done so do it. FWIW, I've been employed by Great Bridge since 1 August, and so far they haven't said word one about what I should be working on; "do what you think is needed" are the sum total of my orders. This happy state of affairs may not last forever --- in particular, once GB has actual customers I will become one of their last-resort tech support people, and so some amount of time will go into responding to He is my first-resort bug fixer, but of course, he was before anyway. :-) -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
I just don't see what the conflict might be. It's not like Great Bridge is going to hold Bruce's family hostage and force him to rewrite PostgreSQL in Cobol. In fact, Great Bridge had better treat their employees very well or they will find that their are greener pastures somewhere else. Not only would Great Bridge lose a very knowledgeable employee, but Bruce could take his source with him when he went to his new employer. Well, there is a non-compete, and though I can't go into it in detail, it is not possible to do that if the new company is similar to Great Bridge. Of course, we all did this for free before, so we can certainly do that again. Clearly, each of us realizes we hold the trust of the group, and do not want to betray that trust. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
"Adam Lang" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wasn't judging. I was mentioning to others what the concerns probably were. Also, it isn't a concern of "Company B" taking over. It is of the possibility of development put in the direction that best benefits of Company B as opposed to the project itself. And again, yes, the other core Who decides what is in the best interest of the project itself ? A community is so diverse that there is alot of conflicting interests. mvh, Gunnar
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: more in voliation of the original plan. violation ? Or is this just another gap in my knowledge of the English language ? Gunnar
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 05:06:37PM -0400, Dave Smith wrote: Adam Lang wrote: Well to calm any fears of Great Bridge taking over what exactly are the terms of employment? Are the developers merely continuing on with what they were working on and now getting paid for it, or is Great Bridge saying here are the projects we want done so do it. "merely?" I've told many people that postgres is one of the best-managed (open-source or otherwise) projects I've seen. The core group knows the code, the deadlines, the bugs, and the solutions. My feeling: The source is open and you are free to do whatever you want with it. If Great Bridge decides that they want to make postgresql into the best damn pinball simulator they can, that is their perogative. If the core developers decide they want to get paid to write a pinball simulator, theat that is their gig and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it, except branch off and decide not to integrate their patches. I would feel very sorry if this happened--and Bruce, Tom, and the other guys who I can't remember names of all understand this. All this whinging about "corperate direction" is really meaningless unless you are prepared to jump ship or split off in a clone of the original one. The code is what you do with it. We are all lucky that it is as good and useful as it is right now. -- Adam Haberlach| A billion hours ago, human life appeared on [EMAIL PROTECTED] | earth. A billion minutes ago, Christianity http://www.newsnipple.com | emerged. A billion Coca-Colas ago was '88 EX500 | yesterday morning. -1996 Coca-Cola Ann. Rpt.
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Adam Haberlach [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: All this whinging about "corperate direction" is really meaningless unless you are prepared to jump ship or split off in a clone of the original one. The code is what you do with it. We are all lucky that it is as good and useful as it is right now. Hallejuja. OK, I'm not Christian, but I agree very much in this sentiment. Regards, Gunnar
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
At 17:25 10/10/00 -0400, Tom Lane wrote: So the question is, what do we do now? There seem to be several concerns (in no particular order): 1. Conscious design/development choices based partly/solely on the needs of one or more companies as opposed to the interest of the open source project. eg. if changes to the core of pgsql to support erServer are actually detrimental to the maintainability and reliability of the open source project. This can not be completely avoided, but the existing core team review system will presumably help. Expanding the core to include non-company people is a good idea. 2. Subconscious design/development choices based on the interests of one or more companies. Can't really avoid this, but one hopes such subconscious decisions will be far less significant than the conscious ones. Again, expanding the core to include non-company people is a good idea. 3. Loss of core members to wholly private development. Can't avoid this. Always was and will be a risk. In answer to "What do we do now", it seems a first step would be to ensure transparency in decision making (something that I think Peter E mentioned). The fact we have two companies, who in theory will compete, is a good thing (let's hope there are no strategic alliances announced in the near future). What about setting up some kind of committee consisting of an expanded core as well as some rotated members (possibly) selected randomly from the non-core developers or users? In reality, any suggestions of 'what to do' has to come from the core. It has to be something you are happy to follow and which is not painful, but which also satisfies the concerns already raised. The first attempt at self-regulation failed, probably because the sights were set unreasonably high. What is needed now is an agreed and reasonable set of guidelines or principles. Philip Warner| __---_ Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |/ - \ (A.B.N. 75 008 659 498) | /(@) __---_ Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _ \ Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___ | Http://www.rhyme.com.au |/ \| |---- PGP key available upon request, | / and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Ned Lilly [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine emulator. All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans. :-) "He's a PostgreSQL wizard, there's got to be a twist..." rotfl ... where's the CC warning on this? regards, tom lane
Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
Gunnar R|nning [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: more in voliation of the original plan. violation ? Or is this just another gap in my knowledge of the English language ? You're right, he's wrong. We native English speakers are notoriously poor spellers of our own language ;-) Oh, sorry. I didn't even see the spelling error. Yes, violation. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
