Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 00:29 -0800, David Fetter wrote: On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 05:40:12PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: I think another point you need to bring out more clearily is that the community is also often miffed if they feel they have been left out of the design and testing phases. This is sometimes just a reflex that is not always based on technical reasoning. Its just that as you correctly point out are worried of being high-jacked by companies. I hate to mention an emotional community reaction in this document. You don't have to name it that if you don't want to, although respect (or at least a good simulation of it) is crucial when dealing with any person or group. I'm very interested in this, because it does seem to me that there is an emotional reaction to many things. Handing the community a /fait accompli/ is a great way to convey disrespect, no matter how well-meaning the process originally was. In a humble, non-confrontational tone: Why/How does a patch imply a fait accompli, or show any disrespect? My own reaction to Teodor's recent submission, or Kai-Uwe Sattler's recent contributions has been: great news, patches need some work, but thanks. Please explain on, or off, list to help me understand. -- Simon Riggs EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Guido Barosio wrote: quote Companies often bring fresh prespective, ideas, and testing infrastucture to a project. /quote prespective || perspective ? Thanks, fixed. --- g.- On 12/21/06, Kevin Grittner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 6:13 PM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. This statement seems to ignore organizations for which PostgreSQL is an implementation detail in their current environment. While we appreciate PostgreSQL and are likely to try to make an occasional contribution, where it seems to be mutually beneficial, the Wisconsin State Courts would survive the collapse of the PostgreSQL community. While I can only guess at the reasons you may have put the slant you did on the document, I think it really should reflect the patient assistance the community provides to those who read the developers FAQ and make a good faith effort to comply with what is outlined there. The cooperative, professional, and helpful demeanor of the members of this community is something which should balanced against the community's need to act as a gatekeeper on submissions. I have recent experience as a first time employee contributor. When we hit a bump in our initial use of PostgreSQL because of the non-standard character string literals, you were gracious in accepting our quick patch as being possibly of some value in the implementation of the related TODO item. You were then helpful in our effort to do a proper implementation of the TODO item which fixes it. I see that the patch I submitted was improved by someone before it made the release, which is great. This illustrates how the process can work. I informed management of the problem, and presented the options -- we could do our own little hack that we then had to maintain and apply as the versions moved along, or we could try to do fix which the community would accept and have that feature just work for us for all subsequent releases. The latter was a little more time up front, but resulted in a better quality product for us, and less work in the long term. It was also presumably of some benefit to the community, which has indirect benefit to our organization. Nobody here wants to switch database products again soon, so if we can solve our problem in a way that helps the product gain momentum, all the better. I ran a consulting business for decades, and I know that there is a great variation in the attitudes among managers. Many are quite reasonable. I'm reminded of a meeting early in my career with a businessman who owned and operated half a dozen successful businesses in a variety of areas. He proposed a deal that I was on the verge of accepting, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He stopped me and told me that he hoped to continue to do business with me, so any deal we made had to benefit and work for both of us or it was no good at all; if I was uncomfortable with something in the proposal, we should talk it out. That's the core of what we're trying to say in this document, isn't it? The rest is an executive overview of the developer FAQ? I can't help feeling that even with the revisions so far it could have a more positive spin. -Kevin ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings -- Guido Barosio --- http://www.globant.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Simon Riggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In a humble, non-confrontational tone: Why/How does a patch imply a fait accompli, or show any disrespect? Well depending on the circumstances it could show the poster isn't interested in the judgement of the existing code authors. It can be hard to tell someone that their last 6 months of work was all in a direction that other developers would rather Postgres not head. However I think people are over-generalising if they think this is always true. Patches are often submitted by people who invite comment and are open to new ideas and reworking their approach. Whether the submission is as a fait accompli or as the beginning of a dialogue (imho a more productive dialogue than the usual hand-waving on -hackers) is determined more by the attitude of the presenter and willingness to take criticisms and make changes than it is by the mere fact that they've written code without prior approval. The flip side of all of this is that the community doesn't always engage when people do ask for feedback. I asked for comments on how best to proceed getting info down to the Sort node from a higher Limit node to implement the limit-sort optimization and didn't get any guidance. As a result I'm kind of stuck. I can proceed without feedback but I fear I would be, in fact, presenting the result as a fait accompli which would end up getting rejected if others were less comfortable with breaking the planner and executor abstractions (or if I choose not to do so and they decide the necessary abstractions are needless complexity). -- Gregory Stark EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
OK, based on this feedback and others, I have made a new version of the article: http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/company_contributions/ There are no new concepts, just a more balance article with some of the awkward wording improved. I also added a link to the article from the developer's FAQ. --- Joshua D. Drake wrote: Hello, O.k. below are some comments. Your article although well written has a distinct, from the community perspective ;) and I think there are some points from the business side that are missed. --- Employees working in open source communities have two bosses -- the companies that employ them, and the open source community, which must review their proposals and patches. Ideally, both groups would want the same thing, but often companies have different priorities in terms of deadlines, time investment, and implementation details. And, unfortunately for companies, open source communities rarely adjust their requirements to match company needs. They would often rather do without than tie their needs to those of a company. --- Employees don't have two bosses at least not in the presentation above. In the community the employee may choose to do it the communities way or not. That choice is much more defined within a Boss purview. A companies priorities have a priority that is very powerful that the community does not and I believe should be reflected in a document such as this. To actually feed the employee. There is a tendency for the community to forget that every minute spent on community work is a direct neglect to the immediate (note that I say immediate) bottom line. That means that priorities must be balanced so that profit can be made, employees can get bonuses and god forbid a steady paycheck. --- This makes the employee's job difficult. When working with the community, it can be difficult to meet company demands. If the company doesn't understand how the community works, the employee can be seen as defiant, when in fact the employee has no choice but to work in the community process and within the community timetable. By serving two masters, employees often exhibit various behaviors that make their community involvement ineffective. Below I outline the steps involved in open source development, and highlight the differences experienced by employees involved in such activities. --- The first paragraph seems to need some qualification. An employee is hired to work at the best interests of the company, not the community. Those two things may overlap, but that is subject to the companies declaration. If the employee is not doing the task as delegated that is defiant. I am suspecting that your clarification would be something to the effect of: When a company sets forth to donate resources to the community, it can make an employee's job difficult. It is important for the company to understand exactly what it is giving and the process that gift entails. Or something like that. I take subject to the term serving two masters, I am certainly not the master of my team but that may just be me. --- Employees usually circulate their proposal inside their companies first before sharing it with the community. Unfortunately, many employees never take the additional step of sharing the proposal with the community. This means the employee is not benefitting from community oversight and suggestions, often leading to a major rewrite when a patch is submitted to the community. --- I think the above is not quite accurate. I see few proposals actually come across to the community either and those that do seem to get bogged down instead of progress being made. The most successful topics I have seen are those that usually have some footing behind them *before* they bring it to the community. --- For employees, patch review often happens in the company first. Only when the company is satisfied is the patch submitted to the community. This is often done because of the perception that poor patches reflect badly on the company. The problem with this patch pre-screening is that it prevents parallel review, where the company and community are both reviewing the patch. Parallel review speeds completion and avoids unnecessary refactoring. --- It does effect the perception of the company. Maybe not to the community but as someone who reads comments on the patches that comes through... I do not look forward to the day when I have a customer that says, didn't you submit that patch that was torn apart by... --- As you can see, community involvement has unique challenges for company employees. There are often many mismatches between company needs and community needs, and the company must decide if it is worth honoring the community needs or going it alone, without community involvement. --- Hmmm... That seems a bit
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Kevin Grittner wrote: On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 6:13 PM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. This statement seems to ignore organizations for which PostgreSQL is an implementation detail in their current environment. While we appreciate PostgreSQL and are likely to try to make an occasional contribution, where it seems to be mutually beneficial, the Wisconsin State Courts would survive the collapse of the PostgreSQL community. Yes, the statement relates mostly to companies that sell/support/enhance open source software, rather than users who are using the software in their businesses. And that text isn't in the article, it was just in an email to make a distinction. I think I have improved the slant of the article. Let me know if it needs further improvement. Thanks. --- While I can only guess at the reasons you may have put the slant you did on the document, I think it really should reflect the patient assistance the community provides to those who read the developers FAQ and make a good faith effort to comply with what is outlined there. The cooperative, professional, and helpful demeanor of the members of this community is something which should balanced against the community's need to act as a gatekeeper on submissions. I have recent experience as a first time employee contributor. When we hit a bump in our initial use of PostgreSQL because of the non-standard character string literals, you were gracious in accepting our quick patch as being possibly of some value in the implementation of the related TODO item. You were then helpful in our effort to do a proper implementation of the TODO item which fixes it. I see that the patch I submitted was improved by someone before it made the release, which is great. This illustrates how the process can work. I informed management of the problem, and presented the options -- we could do our own little hack that we then had to maintain and apply as the versions moved along, or we could try to do fix which the community would accept and have that feature just work for us for all subsequent releases. The latter was a little more time up front, but resulted in a better quality product for us, and less work in the long term. It was also presumably of some benefit to the community, which has indirect benefit to our organization. Nobody here wants to switch database products again soon, so if we can solve our problem in a way that helps the product gain momentum, all the better. I ran a consulting business for decades, and I know that there is a great variation in the attitudes among managers. Many are quite reasonable. I'm reminded of a meeting early in my career with a businessman who owned and operated half a dozen successful businesses in a variety of areas. He proposed a deal that I was on the verge of accepting, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He stopped me and told me that he hoped to continue to do business with me, so any deal we made had to benefit and work for both of us or it was no good at all; if I was uncomfortable with something in the proposal, we should talk it out. That's the core of what we're trying to say in this document, isn't it? The rest is an executive overview of the developer FAQ? I can't help feeling that even with the revisions so far it could have a more positive spin. -Kevin -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
The paper is a good one, from my perspective. It does address important issues and maybe we don't all agree on the exact places lines have been drawn, but I think we probably do agree that these things need to be said. Now that they have been said, we must allow reasonable time for the understanding to percolate and for appropriate changes of direction to take place. We can't undo the past, but we can change the future. On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 19:13 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: This actually brings up an important distinction. Joshua is saying that the community is painted as god in the article, and I agree there is a basis for that, but I don't think you can consider the community and company as equals either. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. For example, the community is not submitting patches for the company to approve. The community is developing software quickly because there are some/many full-time paid staff assigned to the project. We (the Community) need to recognise that the Community is *all* of us and that includes various Companies i.e. Companies aren't distinct from the Community. In that sense, I would agree that The Community is above Companies. We must be appreciative of contributions made in imperfect conditions. Frequently changes are made behind closed doors and then approval is given to release the software, sometimes after extensive lobbying. We shouldn't shun those contributions, even while advising those companies that we'd prefer it if they didn't do it that way next time. We should assume that all development is done with the best intentions, even if things don't follow the FAQ. Now that we have some clear policy on this, I look forward to people being able to say best not do it that way, the Community has a clear policy against that, that Teodor, myself and others can advise sponsors about. BTW, the phrase Companies must also include any external Enterprise, since many good things come our way from Universities and Colleges. We should also recognise that many enterprises are in fact non-profit, or simply local/national government/administrative organisations. Profit per se is not the only thing that drives requirements. -- Simon Riggs EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 6:13 PM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. This statement seems to ignore organizations for which PostgreSQL is an implementation detail in their current environment. While we appreciate PostgreSQL and are likely to try to make an occasional contribution, where it seems to be mutually beneficial, the Wisconsin State Courts would survive the collapse of the PostgreSQL community. While I can only guess at the reasons you may have put the slant you did on the document, I think it really should reflect the patient assistance the community provides to those who read the developers FAQ and make a good faith effort to comply with what is outlined there. The cooperative, professional, and helpful demeanor of the members of this community is something which should balanced against the community's need to act as a gatekeeper on submissions. I have recent experience as a first time employee contributor. When we hit a bump in our initial use of PostgreSQL because of the non-standard character string literals, you were gracious in accepting our quick patch as being possibly of some value in the implementation of the related TODO item. You were then helpful in our effort to do a proper implementation of the TODO item which fixes it. I see that the patch I submitted was improved by someone before it made the release, which is great. This illustrates how the process can work. I informed management of the problem, and presented the options -- we could do our own little hack that we then had to maintain and apply as the versions moved along, or we could try to do fix which the community would accept and have that feature just work for us for all subsequent releases. The latter was a little more time up front, but resulted in a better quality product for us, and less work in the long term. It was also presumably of some benefit to the community, which has indirect benefit to our organization. Nobody here wants to switch database products again soon, so if we can solve our problem in a way that helps the product gain momentum, all the better. I ran a consulting business for decades, and I know that there is a great variation in the attitudes among managers. Many are quite reasonable. I'm reminded of a meeting early in my career with a businessman who owned and operated half a dozen successful businesses in a variety of areas. He proposed a deal that I was on the verge of accepting, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He stopped me and told me that he hoped to continue to do business with me, so any deal we made had to benefit and work for both of us or it was no good at all; if I was uncomfortable with something in the proposal, we should talk it out. That's the core of what we're trying to say in this document, isn't it? The rest is an executive overview of the developer FAQ? I can't help feeling that even with the revisions so far it could have a more positive spin. -Kevin ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
quote Companies often bring fresh prespective, ideas, and testing infrastucture to a project. /quote prespective || perspective ? g.- On 12/21/06, Kevin Grittner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 6:13 PM, in message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. This statement seems to ignore organizations for which PostgreSQL is an implementation detail in their current environment. While we appreciate PostgreSQL and are likely to try to make an occasional contribution, where it seems to be mutually beneficial, the Wisconsin State Courts would survive the collapse of the PostgreSQL community. While I can only guess at the reasons you may have put the slant you did on the document, I think it really should reflect the patient assistance the community provides to those who read the developers FAQ and make a good faith effort to comply with what is outlined there. The cooperative, professional, and helpful demeanor of the members of this community is something which should balanced against the community's need to act as a gatekeeper on submissions. I have recent experience as a first time employee contributor. When we hit a bump in our initial use of PostgreSQL because of the non-standard character string literals, you were gracious in accepting our quick patch as being possibly of some value in the implementation of the related TODO item. You were then helpful in our effort to do a proper implementation of the TODO item which fixes it. I see that the patch I submitted was improved by someone before it made the release, which is great. This illustrates how the process can work. I informed management of the problem, and presented the options -- we could do our own little hack that we then had to maintain and apply as the versions moved along, or we could try to do fix which the community would accept and have that feature just work for us for all subsequent releases. The latter was a little more time up front, but resulted in a better quality product for us, and less work in the long term. It was also presumably of some benefit to the community, which has indirect benefit to our organization. Nobody here wants to switch database products again soon, so if we can solve our problem in a way that helps the product gain momentum, all the better. I ran a consulting business for decades, and I know that there is a great variation in the attitudes among managers. Many are quite reasonable. I'm reminded of a meeting early in my career with a businessman who owned and operated half a dozen successful businesses in a variety of areas. He proposed a deal that I was on the verge of accepting, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He stopped me and told me that he hoped to continue to do business with me, so any deal we made had to benefit and work for both of us or it was no good at all; if I was uncomfortable with something in the proposal, we should talk it out. That's the core of what we're trying to say in this document, isn't it? The rest is an executive overview of the developer FAQ? I can't help feeling that even with the revisions so far it could have a more positive spin. -Kevin ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings -- Guido Barosio --- http://www.globant.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 07:17:13PM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:04 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. Josh, I hate to burst your bubble, but Great Bridge employed a much larger fraction of the hacker-community-at-the-time than either EDB or CMD do today. We survived that, and if EDB or CMD or Greenplum or the entire lot went down tomorrow, we'd survive that too. I never once suggested that the community would not survive. I said it would hurt productivity for n amount of time. Let's just be realistic here: In one fails swoop: Devrim, Alvaro, Darcy, Heikki, Bruce, Simon, Greg, Dave, Marc and I are all suddenly looking for employment... and by Friday, all are working again, unless they want to take a few weeks off. :) You don't think there would be an issue that could cause some grief to the community? Not really. It might cause some personal grief to each, which might cause some temporary loss of productivity. Then again, it might be a stimulating shakeup, or creative destruction, to borrow a phrase. Is it surmountable? Of course, that isn't the point. The point is that it is not painless. Nothing is painless. Cheers, D -- David Fetter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote! ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 05:40:12PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: Hi, I think another point you need to bring out more clearily is that the community is also often miffed if they feel they have been left out of the design and testing phases. This is sometimes just a reflex that is not always based on technical reasoning. Its just that as you correctly point out are worried of being high-jacked by companies. I hate to mention an emotional community reaction in this document. You don't have to name it that if you don't want to, although respect (or at least a good simulation of it) is crucial when dealing with any person or group. Handing the community a /fait accompli/ is a great way to convey disrespect, no matter how well-meaning the process originally was. We normally just highlight the inefficiency of a company doing things on their own, and the wasted effort of them having to make adjustments. Would it really hurt to touch on some of the whys of this? Cheers, D -- David Fetter [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote! ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
David Fetter wrote: On Tue, Dec 19, 2006 at 05:40:12PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: Hi, I think another point you need to bring out more clearily is that the community is also often miffed if they feel they have been left out of the design and testing phases. This is sometimes just a reflex that is not always based on technical reasoning. Its just that as you correctly point out are worried of being high-jacked by companies. I hate to mention an emotional community reaction in this document. You don't have to name it that if you don't want to, although respect (or at least a good simulation of it) is crucial when dealing with any person or group. Handing the community a /fait accompli/ is a great way to convey disrespect, no matter how well-meaning the process originally was. We normally just highlight the inefficiency of a company doing things on their own, and the wasted effort of them having to make adjustments. Would it really hurt to touch on some of the whys of this? Sure, I mention that once they deal with the community, it might requires extensive rewriting: This means the employee is not benefitting from community oversight and suggestions, often leading to a major rewrite when a patch is submitted to the community. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 12:11 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: I have written an article about the complexities of companies contributing to open source projects: http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/company_contributions/ If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I am going to add a link to this from the developer's FAQ. This is certainly interesting. Is there a possibility of being able to read it as a single page? I would like to comment on it but it is hard to cross reference specific points (at least to me) with the small sections. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 12:11 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: I have written an article about the complexities of companies contributing to open source projects: http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/company_contributions/ If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I am going to add a link to this from the developer's FAQ. This is certainly interesting. Is there a possibility of being able to read it as a single page? I would like to comment on it but it is hard to cross reference specific points (at least to me) with the small sections. Thanks for the feedback, sectioning fixed. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 13:38 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: Joshua D. Drake wrote: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 12:11 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: I have written an article about the complexities of companies contributing to open source projects: http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/company_contributions/ If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I am going to add a link to this from the developer's FAQ. This is certainly interesting. Is there a possibility of being able to read it as a single page? I would like to comment on it but it is hard to cross reference specific points (at least to me) with the small sections. Thanks for the feedback, sectioning fixed. Much better, thanks. I will comment shortly. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/20/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for the feedback, sectioning fixed. Spelling mistake: because they have gone though a company process to because they have gone *through* a company process Regards, -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] gmail | hotmail | yahoo }.com
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Fixed, thanks. --- Gurjeet Singh wrote: On 12/20/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks for the feedback, sectioning fixed. Spelling mistake: because they have gone though a company process to because they have gone *through* a company process Regards, -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] gmail | hotmail | yahoo }.com -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/20/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Fixed, thanks.
Follwing statement seems to be a bit mangled:
then when company('s?) needs diverge, going *it*(?) alone, then returning to
the community process at some later time.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] gmail | hotmail | yahoo }.com
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Gurjeet Singh wrote:
On 12/20/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Fixed, thanks.
Follwing statement seems to be a bit mangled:
then when company('s?) needs diverge, going *it*(?) alone, then returning to
the community process at some later time.
Thanks, clarified.
--
Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED]
EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com
+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
---(end of broadcast)---
TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Hi, I think another point you need to bring out more clearily is that the community is also often miffed if they feel they have been left out of the design and testing phases. This is sometimes just a reflex that is not always based on technical reasoning. Its just that as you correctly point out are worried of being high-jacked by companies. regards, Lukas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Hello, O.k. below are some comments. Your article although well written has a distinct, from the community perspective ;) and I think there are some points from the business side that are missed. --- Employees working in open source communities have two bosses -- the companies that employ them, and the open source community, which must review their proposals and patches. Ideally, both groups would want the same thing, but often companies have different priorities in terms of deadlines, time investment, and implementation details. And, unfortunately for companies, open source communities rarely adjust their requirements to match company needs. They would often rather do without than tie their needs to those of a company. --- Employees don't have two bosses at least not in the presentation above. In the community the employee may choose to do it the communities way or not. That choice is much more defined within a Boss purview. A companies priorities have a priority that is very powerful that the community does not and I believe should be reflected in a document such as this. To actually feed the employee. There is a tendency for the community to forget that every minute spent on community work is a direct neglect to the immediate (note that I say immediate) bottom line. That means that priorities must be balanced so that profit can be made, employees can get bonuses and god forbid a steady paycheck. --- This makes the employee's job difficult. When working with the community, it can be difficult to meet company demands. If the company doesn't understand how the community works, the employee can be seen as defiant, when in fact the employee has no choice but to work in the community process and within the community timetable. By serving two masters, employees often exhibit various behaviors that make their community involvement ineffective. Below I outline the steps involved in open source development, and highlight the differences experienced by employees involved in such activities. --- The first paragraph seems to need some qualification. An employee is hired to work at the best interests of the company, not the community. Those two things may overlap, but that is subject to the companies declaration. If the employee is not doing the task as delegated that is defiant. I am suspecting that your clarification would be something to the effect of: When a company sets forth to donate resources to the community, it can make an employee's job difficult. It is important for the company to understand exactly what it is giving and the process that gift entails. Or something like that. I take subject to the term serving two masters, I am certainly not the master of my team but that may just be me. --- Employees usually circulate their proposal inside their companies first before sharing it with the community. Unfortunately, many employees never take the additional step of sharing the proposal with the community. This means the employee is not benefitting from community oversight and suggestions, often leading to a major rewrite when a patch is submitted to the community. --- I think the above is not quite accurate. I see few proposals actually come across to the community either and those that do seem to get bogged down instead of progress being made. The most successful topics I have seen are those that usually have some footing behind them *before* they bring it to the community. --- For employees, patch review often happens in the company first. Only when the company is satisfied is the patch submitted to the community. This is often done because of the perception that poor patches reflect badly on the company. The problem with this patch pre-screening is that it prevents parallel review, where the company and community are both reviewing the patch. Parallel review speeds completion and avoids unnecessary refactoring. --- It does effect the perception of the company. Maybe not to the community but as someone who reads comments on the patches that comes through... I do not look forward to the day when I have a customer that says, didn't you submit that patch that was torn apart by... --- As you can see, community involvement has unique challenges for company employees. There are often many mismatches between company needs and community needs, and the company must decide if it is worth honoring the community needs or going it alone, without community involvement. --- Hmmm... That seems a bit unfair don't you think? The people within the company are likely members of the community. It seems that it makes sense for the community to actually work with the company as well. I am not suggesting that the community develop code to the needs of a company. I am suggesting that perhaps the community needs and the company needs often overlap but both sides tend to ignore the overlap and point at each other instead. --- Company involvement in the community process usually has unforseen benefits, but also
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: O.k. in all Bruce I like your article but I must admit it seems to take a The community is god perspective and that we must all bend to the will of said community. The community could learn a great deal from adopting some of the more common business practices when it comes to development as well. In short, I guess I think it is important to recognize that both are partners in the open source world and that to ignore one over the other is destined to fail. I think Bruce article is about painting a realistic picture for companies who want to get involved. And the reality is that people tend to be worried about company influence quite often and they do expect a higher standard for patches coming from a (big) company. For individuals they are more forgiving, but if an IBM engineer does a little mistake it will produce a few (not necessarily open) snickers. regards, Lukas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/20/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: O.k. in all Bruce I like your article but I must admit it seems to take a The community is god perspective and that we must all bend to the will of said community. I'm not really in a position to judge how a company thinks about donating resources to a project, but I certainly think that Bruce' standpoint is correct, and that the community is *indeed* the driver of a project; if a company doesn't like how the community deals with their requirements/needs they can just maintain their own branch. The community could learn a great deal from adopting some of the more common business practices when it comes to development as well. In short, I guess I think it is important to recognize that both are partners in the open source world and that to ignore one over the other is destined to fail. Do you have any statistical data to back that hypothesis? Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake Cheers, Andrej ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 09:51 +1300, Andrej Ricnik-Bay wrote: On 12/20/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: O.k. in all Bruce I like your article but I must admit it seems to take a The community is god perspective and that we must all bend to the will of said community. I'm not really in a position to judge how a company thinks about donating resources to a project, but I certainly think that Bruce' standpoint is correct, and that the community is *indeed* the driver of a project; if a company doesn't like how the community deals with their requirements/needs they can just maintain their own branch. It is definitely a tough distinction. My first thought on reply was that well a companies employees become members of the community but that reinforces what you say above. I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. The community could learn a great deal from adopting some of the more common business practices when it comes to development as well. In short, I guess I think it is important to recognize that both are partners in the open source world and that to ignore one over the other is destined to fail. Do you have any statistical data to back that hypothesis? Of which, the community learning or my take that if we ignore one over the other it is destined to fail? I don't really want to bring up the first point as it has been hashed over and over. It lends to the project management, todo list, milestone debacle :) The second point is that if the community ignores the company trying to give resources, the company is likely to ignore the community and thus we both fail (and vice versa). Sincerely, Joshua D. Drkae Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake Cheers, Andrej ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/20/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. I appreciate that, but then Bruce' aim was (or at least that's how I interpreted it) to point out difficulties that he as a long time member of the postgres hacker community sees; it would be a bit weird to expect him to write something from the perspective of a company (even though he conceivably could as an employee of enterprisedb). Of which, the community learning or my take that if we ignore one over the other it is destined to fail? I meant the failure bit, sorry for the poor quoting. I don't really want to bring up the first point as it has been hashed over and over. It lends to the project management, todo list, milestone debacle :) Amen The second point is that if the community ignores the company trying to give resources, the company is likely to ignore the community and thus we both fail (and vice versa). I guess it depends on how you define fail for a group that hasn't set its mind on making profit. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drkae Cheers, Andrej ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. I have not been following closely. But IMNSHO we should be stressing the synergy involved in companies contributing to us. They benefit and we benefit. Yes there can be conflicts, but these are less likely to occur if communication stays open. Doing things behind closed doors is a recipe for disaster whether you are a contributing company or individual. Example: if I had developed notification payloads without getting Tom's redirection, I would have come up with a patch that would have been rejected, pissing me off and wasting my company's time. Now I feel I can come up with something acceptable. cheers andrew ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 10:27 +1300, Andrej Ricnik-Bay wrote: On 12/20/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. I appreciate that, but then Bruce' aim was (or at least that's how I interpreted it) to point out difficulties that he as a long time member of the postgres hacker community sees; it would be a bit weird to expect him to write something from the perspective of a company (even though he conceivably could as an employee of enterprisedb). Well of course :), that is why I offered some feedback. The second point is that if the community ignores the company trying to give resources, the company is likely to ignore the community and thus we both fail (and vice versa). I guess it depends on how you define fail for a group that hasn't set its mind on making profit. I am not speaking to profit or loss or money at all. I believe that just the relationship not being productive between the community and the company could be considered failing. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 16:30 -0500, Andrew Dunstan wrote: Joshua D. Drake wrote: I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. I have not been following closely. But IMNSHO we should be stressing the synergy involved in companies contributing to us. They benefit and we benefit. Yes there can be conflicts, but these are less likely to occur if communication stays open. Doing things behind closed doors is a recipe for disaster whether you are a contributing company or individual. Example: if I had developed notification payloads without getting Tom's redirection, I would have come up with a patch that would have been rejected, pissing me off and wasting my company's time. Now I feel I can come up with something acceptable. +1 Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake cheers andrew -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote: Hi, I think another point you need to bring out more clearily is that the community is also often miffed if they feel they have been left out of the design and testing phases. This is sometimes just a reflex that is not always based on technical reasoning. Its just that as you correctly point out are worried of being high-jacked by companies. I hate to mention an emotional community reaction in this document. We normally just highlight the inefficiency of a company doing things on their own, and the wasted effort of them having to make adjustments. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 09:51 +1300, Andrej Ricnik-Bay wrote: On 12/20/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: O.k. in all Bruce I like your article but I must admit it seems to take a The community is god perspective and that we must all bend to the will of said community. I'm not really in a position to judge how a company thinks about donating resources to a project, but I certainly think that Bruce' standpoint is correct, and that the community is *indeed* the driver of a project; if a company doesn't like how the community deals with their requirements/needs they can just maintain their own branch. It is definitely a tough distinction. My first thought on reply was that well a companies employees become members of the community but that reinforces what you say above. I think my overall thought is the tone seems a bit non-gracious to companies, when IMO the community should be actively courting companies to give resources. If companies feel unwelcome, they won't give. The community could learn a great deal from adopting some of the more common business practices when it comes to development as well. In short, I guess I think it is important to recognize that both are partners in the open source world and that to ignore one over the other is destined to fail. Do you have any statistical data to back that hypothesis? Of which, the community learning or my take that if we ignore one over the other it is destined to fail? This actually brings up an important distinction. Joshua is saying that the community is painted as god in the article, and I agree there is a basis for that, but I don't think you can consider the community and company as equals either. I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. For example, the community is not submitting patches for the company to approve. I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
The community could learn a great deal from adopting some of the more common business practices when it comes to development as well. In short, I guess I think it is important to recognize that both are partners in the open source world and that to ignore one over the other is destined to fail. Do you have any statistical data to back that hypothesis? Of which, the community learning or my take that if we ignore one over the other it is destined to fail? This actually brings up an important distinction. Joshua is saying that the community is painted as god in the article, and I agree there is a basis for that, but I don't think you can consider the community and company as equals either. I can agree with that. I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. It isn't that the community wouldn't go on, but that it would definitely negatively affect the productivity of the community for n amount of time. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. For example, the community is not submitting patches for the company to approve. Agreed. I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. Cool, that is what I was really looking for. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/19/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This actually brings up an important distinction. Joshua is saying that the community is painted as god in the article, and I agree there is a basis for that, but I don't think you can consider the community and company as equals either. Of course, this seems only true to PostgreSQL, FreeBSD, and very few others... not the other 99% of open source communities which are open sourced around a commercial product or consist of a handful of people. The title of the document is generalized to Open Source Communities, and most of the items here just don't represent the majority of open source communities whether we'd like it to or not. if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. In my opinion, if a PostgreSQL company dies, there will be a ripple-effect felt in the community depending on the size of the company, development/support sponsored, monetary contribution, etc. If a company buys up (or buys off) the experienced major developers for an open source project, it could easily spell disaster for the project. However, in regard to a dying community killing a company, I disagree completely. Commercial software companies most certainly do not rely on outside contribution to survive. And, like it or not, any company could run with PostgreSQL as a normal software company exactly the same way as they can with code they wrote from scratch. Many open source people forget there is a commercial software industry that not only predates them, but will most likely continue on far into the future. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. Again, this thinking may apply only to a few projects with a PostgreSQL-like model. The reference to, the community seems directly linked to PostgreSQL. I can name many communities that could never compete on a development rate with their commercial sponsors/counterparts. Commercial companies (100+ names left out) can develop way more features than most open source communities in the same span of time or faster. And, going back to the article being open-source in general, most other open source communities don't actually contribute a ton of code back to the project's parent software base; certainly not more than the company writes itself. As this document is supposed to be factual, I'd really like not to get into a war over lines-of-code development rates vs. bugs, quality (or lack thereof), etc. The *fact* is, some commercial software companies could easily churn out more, better quality code, if they chose to hire the right people and put enough money and thought into it. I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. The title of the document, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities doesn't seem to fit the content. I would consider something more along the lines of, Enterprise Open Source: Effectively Contributing Commercial Support to Open Source Communities, or, What to Expect when Contributing to Open Source Projects. More specifically, I'd restrict the document to PostgreSQL because it really doesn't represent the majority of open source software communities which tend to be commercially-driven. If this document is meant to help companies help open source and/or PostgreSQL, I think that's a good idea. This document doesn't seem to be written in the way a company, looking to help fund or contribute to an open source project, would respond favorably to. It seems more or less from a community view as to, if you want to help us, this is what we expect from you; which may be the desired intent.?. I read it over twice and that was my impression. While I'm a big fan of open source, prefer it to *most* commercial software, and think it's a great thing all around, I'm a realist and am not going to turn a blind eye to the enormously successful and profitable arena of commercial software. You and I have discussed these items before privately and, while we always seem to disagree, I just figured I'd post them (for better or worse) on-list. For both sides of the discussion, I'm sure there are others who think the same thing but remain silent :) -- Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324 EnterpriseDB Corporation| fax: 732.331.1301 33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor| [EMAIL PROTECTED] Iselin, New Jersey 08830| http://www.enterprisedb.com/ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. Josh, I hate to burst your bubble, but Great Bridge employed a much larger fraction of the hacker-community-at-the-time than either EDB or CMD do today. We survived that, and if EDB or CMD or Greenplum or the entire lot went down tomorrow, we'd survive that too. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:04 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. Josh, I hate to burst your bubble, but Great Bridge employed a much larger fraction of the hacker-community-at-the-time than either EDB or CMD do today. We survived that, and if EDB or CMD or Greenplum or the entire lot went down tomorrow, we'd survive that too. I never once suggested that the community would not survive. I said it would hurt productivity for n amount of time. Let's just be realistic here: In one fails swoop: Devrim, Alvaro, Darcy, Heikki, Bruce, Simon, Greg, Dave, Marc and I are all suddenly looking for employment... You don't think there would be an issue that could cause some grief to the community? Is it surmountable? Of course, that isn't the point. The point is that it is not painless. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake regards, tom lane -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. It isn't that the community wouldn't go on, but that it would definitely negatively affect the productivity of the community for n amount of time. The assumption is that other companies would jump in to support the paid individuals affected by the company closings. If that didn't happen, there would be an effect, yes. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. For example, the community is not submitting patches for the company to approve. Agreed. I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. Cool, that is what I was really looking for. Yes, the original was pretty negative, and the end of it was very negative, I felt. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
In one fails swoop: Sorry a beer and email just doesn't mix. The above should be one fell swoop. Devrim, Alvaro, Darcy, Heikki, Bruce, Simon, Greg, Dave, Marc and I are all suddenly looking for employment... You don't think there would be an issue that could cause some grief to the community? Is it surmountable? Of course, that isn't the point. The point is that it is not painless. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake regards, tom lane -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: In one fails swoop: ITYM fell swoop. see http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fel1.htm cheers a ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Jonah H. Harris wrote: As this document is supposed to be factual, I'd really like not to get into a war over lines-of-code development rates vs. bugs, quality (or lack thereof), etc. The *fact* is, some commercial software companies could easily churn out more, better quality code, if they chose to hire the right people and put enough money and thought into it. Ahem - not wanting a war either, but what you have stated is not really a fact at all - as it is full of hypothetical 'if's! The title of the document, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities doesn't seem to fit the content. This makes sense - since Bruce is primarily writing about the *Postgresql* community, maybe putting that in the title might be good! Cheers Mark ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. Cool, that is what I was really looking for. Yes, the original was pretty negative, and the end of it was very negative, I felt. Great I look forward to seeing a revised version. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
The article assumes healthy open source communities, not open source communities that are offshoots or parasites of commercial companies. The article title, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities itself assumes that because the company is contributing to the community, not the reverse. As for your other points, I don't think they reflect the general feeling of the PostgreSQL community. --- Jonah H. Harris wrote: On 12/19/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This actually brings up an important distinction. Joshua is saying that the community is painted as god in the article, and I agree there is a basis for that, but I don't think you can consider the community and company as equals either. Of course, this seems only true to PostgreSQL, FreeBSD, and very few others... not the other 99% of open source communities which are open sourced around a commercial product or consist of a handful of people. The title of the document is generalized to Open Source Communities, and most of the items here just don't represent the majority of open source communities whether we'd like it to or not. if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. In my opinion, if a PostgreSQL company dies, there will be a ripple-effect felt in the community depending on the size of the company, development/support sponsored, monetary contribution, etc. If a company buys up (or buys off) the experienced major developers for an open source project, it could easily spell disaster for the project. However, in regard to a dying community killing a company, I disagree completely. Commercial software companies most certainly do not rely on outside contribution to survive. And, like it or not, any company could run with PostgreSQL as a normal software company exactly the same way as they can with code they wrote from scratch. Many open source people forget there is a commercial software industry that not only predates them, but will most likely continue on far into the future. Also, the community is developing the software at a rate that almost no other company can match, so again the company is kind of in toe if they are working with the community process. Again, this thinking may apply only to a few projects with a PostgreSQL-like model. The reference to, the community seems directly linked to PostgreSQL. I can name many communities that could never compete on a development rate with their commercial sponsors/counterparts. Commercial companies (100+ names left out) can develop way more features than most open source communities in the same span of time or faster. And, going back to the article being open-source in general, most other open source communities don't actually contribute a ton of code back to the project's parent software base; certainly not more than the company writes itself. As this document is supposed to be factual, I'd really like not to get into a war over lines-of-code development rates vs. bugs, quality (or lack thereof), etc. The *fact* is, some commercial software companies could easily churn out more, better quality code, if they chose to hire the right people and put enough money and thought into it. I do think I need to add a more generous outreach to companies in the article, explaining how valuable they are to the community, so let me work on that and I will post when I have an update. The title of the document, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities doesn't seem to fit the content. I would consider something more along the lines of, Enterprise Open Source: Effectively Contributing Commercial Support to Open Source Communities, or, What to Expect when Contributing to Open Source Projects. More specifically, I'd restrict the document to PostgreSQL because it really doesn't represent the majority of open source software communities which tend to be commercially-driven. If this document is meant to help companies help open source and/or PostgreSQL, I think that's a good idea. This document doesn't seem to be written in the way a company, looking to help fund or contribute to an open source project, would respond favorably to. It seems more or less from a community view as to, if you want to help us, this is what we expect from you; which may be the desired intent.?. I read it over twice and that was my impression. While I'm a big fan of open source, prefer it to *most* commercial software, and think it's a great thing all around, I'm a realist and am not going to turn a blind eye to the enormously successful and profitable arena of commercial software. You and I have discussed these items before privately and, while we always seem to disagree, I just figured I'd
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Jonah H. Harris wrote: The title of the document, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities doesn't seem to fit the content. I would consider something more along the lines of, Enterprise Open Source: Effectively Contributing Commercial Support to Open Source Communities, or, What to Expect when Contributing to Open Source Projects. More specifically, I'd restrict the document to PostgreSQL because it really doesn't represent the majority of open source software communities which tend to be commercially-driven. I agree that there are a lot of open source communities which are setup in the other way you describe, the non-PostgreSQL way. However I wouldn't go as far as saying that the 99% of the OSS projects are. Linux (the kernel), Gnome, KDE are counterexamples -- no single company could ever dream of improving their products at the rate those projects do. I think the element in common in all these projects is that there are multiple companies cooperating to see them progress; cooperating with each other, and with individual developers. As the project matures, more developers join, the companies hires some of them and let them work on the project, and more companies join. If a single company leaves it may hinder development but it's not the doom of the project. This is in stark contrast with one-manned projects or single-company projects. -- Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/ The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 12/19/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. However, in regard to a dying community killing a company, I disagree completely. Commercial software companies most certainly do not rely on outside contribution to survive. So, I suppose you can give us ten examples of thriving companies based on private forks of dead open-source projects? regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:54 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On 12/19/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. However, in regard to a dying community killing a company, I disagree completely. Commercial software companies most certainly do not rely on outside contribution to survive. So, I suppose you can give us ten examples of thriving companies based on private forks of dead open-source projects? MySQL? (sorry couldn't resist). regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake wrote: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:04 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I remember the president of Great Bridge saying that the company needs the community, but not visa-vera --- if the company dies, the community keeps going (as it did after Great Bridge, without a hickup), but if the community dies, the company dies too. I 95% agree here. If EDB or CMD were go to down in flames, it could hurt the community quite a bit. Josh, I hate to burst your bubble, but Great Bridge employed a much larger fraction of the hacker-community-at-the-time than either EDB or CMD do today. We survived that, and if EDB or CMD or Greenplum or the entire lot went down tomorrow, we'd survive that too. I never once suggested that the community would not survive. I said it would hurt productivity for n amount of time. Let's just be realistic here: In one fails swoop: Devrim, Alvaro, Darcy, Heikki, Bruce, Simon, Greg, Dave, Marc and I are all suddenly looking for employment... You don't think there would be an issue that could cause some grief to the community? Is it surmountable? Of course, that isn't the point. The point is that it is not painless. Yes, that does seem painful. I would hope than any vibrant open source community would have other companies who would have new jobs for many of these individuals, but I also hope some could continue as volunteers if they don't get sponsored jobs. I know when Great Bridge closed, most of the community people had new jobs almost immediately. -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:54 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: So, I suppose you can give us ten examples of thriving companies based on private forks of dead open-source projects? MySQL? (sorry couldn't resist). Uh, no, because that was never a genuine open-source (as in community-owned, community-driven) project --- MySQL AB has always owned it --- lock, stock, barrel and every single major developer. Plastering a GPL license on the top of the code tree doesn't make it into a community project. Illustra/Ingres would be a valid counterexample in our own historical tradition, except that they've thrown in the towel recently IIRC? I'm not aware of too many more. Like I said, if you want to establish this as the typical case, name ten examples. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 23:17 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 22:54 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: So, I suppose you can give us ten examples of thriving companies based on private forks of dead open-source projects? MySQL? (sorry couldn't resist). Uh, no, because that was never a genuine open-source (as in community-owned, community-driven) project --- MySQL AB has always owned it --- lock, stock, barrel and every single major developer. Plastering a GPL license on the top of the code tree doesn't make it into a community project. Illustra/Ingres would be a valid counterexample in our own historical tradition, except that they've thrown in the towel recently IIRC? Ingres is opensource again yes. http://www.ingres.com/ . Joshua D. Drake I'm not aware of too many more. Like I said, if you want to establish this as the typical case, name ten examples. regards, tom lane -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/19/06, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ingres is opensource again yes. http://www.ingres.com/ . Yep. I'm not aware of too many more. Like I said, if you want to establish this as the typical case, name ten examples. We could also mention all the Ingres-based offshoots that were commercial. Let me think of some other examples... but there may not be that many seeing as there aren't really that many PostgreSQL-like communities. I guess I could mention more if I had a clear understanding of what we mean when we say, community. /me will think of some forked projects that are successful, I'm sure there's quite a few out there. Many university projects which are fairly community-based go commercial and the community fades away. Sometimes a community will be created around once open source, gone commercial, back to open source projects like *BSD, POSTGRES, and INGRES. In my opinion, should a company base it's product on open source, their first responsibility as a business should be to plan a continuity strategy around near-catastrophic changes to the project their basing themselves on. Lack of doing so would most certainly make the case that they would fail if the community failed... but then again, that's just poor business planning at fault and has nothing to do with the open source community. -- Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324 EnterpriseDB Corporation| fax: 732.331.1301 33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor| [EMAIL PROTECTED] Iselin, New Jersey 08830| http://www.enterprisedb.com/ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] Companies Contributing to Open Source
On 12/19/06, Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The article assumes healthy open source communities, not open source communities that are offshoots or parasites of commercial companies. Assumptions are many times incorrect. Similarly, I wouldn't disregard an open source community just because it may be based on an open source variant of a commercial software version. The article title, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To Open Source Communities itself assumes that because the company is contributing to the community, not the reverse. Which other thriving communities have been consulted? If all assumptions in the document are based solely on experiences in the PostgreSQL community, then is it not, How Companies Can Effectively Contribute To PostgreSQL? As for your other points, I don't think they reflect the general feeling of the PostgreSQL community. Perhaps not. -- Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324 EnterpriseDB Corporation| fax: 732.331.1301 33 Wood Ave S, 3rd Floor| [EMAIL PROTECTED] Iselin, New Jersey 08830| http://www.enterprisedb.com/ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
