The State of the Community
Joshua D. Drake

Organizing
(legal like)
Long before anyone else, (~2000?), came the Japanese
http://www.postgresql.jp/
In 2005, came the French
http://www.postgresqlfr.org/
In 2006, came SPI
http://www.spi-inc.org/
In 2007, came the Italians
http://www.itpug.org/
In 2008, the regions got it together
http://www.postgresql.eu
http://www.postgresql.us

Postgresql.eu
● Facilitate the work for the user groups around Europe (not EU), in
particular smaller groups that don't have the resources.
● Act as user group for European countries that don't have their own
local organization.
● Assist in coordination and production and distribute flyers, folders, t-
shirts, mugs, other swag to the different European events and groups.
● European-level advocacy and marketing as a complement to the
national ones there today

Postgresql.us
● Support the PostgreSQL Community Conference series
(EAST/WEST)
● Continue establishing PGDays like those at OSCON and LinuxWorld
● Establish a grant program to sponsor the advocacy and development
of PostgreSQL
● Work with international PostgreSQL organizations to achieve
common goals
● Establish and support user groups in all major areas of the United
States.
● Create free curriculum for PostgreSQL
● Establish regularly scheduled workshops for PostgreSQL

So what does this mean for...

Not Growing?
It's time to step it up. You fight big budgets with enthusiastic and engaging volunteers!

Growing!
Every PostgreSQL Community Event, must be a sea of blue, an Army of Smurfs!
Josh it is time to put that PostgreSQL shirt version in the sock drawer for good!

Cause there is never enough...

Elements to growth
● Community
● Developers
● Education
● Infrastructure
● Goals

Community
● A community must exist beyond the main body
– Similar communities that have expanded have shown significant growth
in all areas (Apache)
– The main body must support and encourage growth of secondary
projects
● Example Secondary projects to the main body
– Slony-I
– PL/Proxy
– LedgerSMB
– ruby-pg
– PL/LOLCODE
– Replicator

Community part deux
● Linux would be nothing but an interesting personal research
project without users.
● For growth of PostgreSQL to continue, the community as a
whole must be considered.

Community part 日本語 )
99% of the community is outside of
@postgresql.org

Developers
● Developers are most important to the product
body. However they are only one part of the
community body.
● Developers are needed for any community to
grow. Without developers the product withers.
● Have you reviewed a patch lately?
– http://momjian.us/mhonarc/patches/thrd8.html#00969

Developers part dois
● Did you know that if only 200 companies
donated 100.00 per month, the PostgreSQL
community could support (including stipends for
health insurance and taxes) two senior hackers,
full time.
● Did you know that if 1000 community members
donated 36.00 a month, we could sponsor an
additional two senior hackers?
There are only three hackers currently active on PostgreSQL.Org core.
Tom Lane, Peter Eisentraut and Dave Page.

Developers part 한국어
• Did you know that if SUN Microsystems had
donated just 10% of the monies paid to MySQL
to PostgreSQL instead...
• SUN could have sponsored 20 full time
PostgreSQL hackers including all taxes,
overheard, merit raises, benefits and cost of
living increases for:
20 years
Assumes 250K per year aggregate expense.

Education
Education is the root of Open Source
The future growth of our
community relies on our ability
to educate the DBAs,
Programmers, Users and
Corporations.
●Free Curriculum
●Workshops
●Training
●Tutorials
●Conferences
●Talks
All of the above are vital to the
education of the wider
community.
Let's face it, we must save people from rabid Dolphins

Education part Wili
●
In 2006, PostgreSQL had its first “PostgreSQL” conference. The 10th Anniversary in Toronto.
● In 2007, PostgreSQL had its first dedicated commercial Conference, PGCon in Ottawa.
● In 2007, PostgreSQL had its first dedicated Community conferences, PgDay.IT and West.
● In the first quarter of 2008 there are already 8 planned PostgreSQL only conference
– East – Maryland
– PG UK 2008
– PgCon - Ottawa
– PDXPUG Day @ OSCON
– LWEPG Day @ LinuxWorld
– West – Portland
– PGDay.IT – Italy
– PGCon EU – TBA
● Community led events are the key to educating the new and existing community.
Have you considered holding a one day workshop?

Infrastructure
● Communication infrastructure
– The days of the cowboys in Open Source are over.
The community needs defined points of contact.
● Some call it bureaucracy
– The public requires the ability to contact specific people for
specific purpose. You can not contact “the community”, its too
large.
We have experienced exponential growth user group initiations since we added a single
point of contact for that task:
PostgreSQL User Group Liaison
Selena Deckelmann selena@postgresql.org

Infrastructure part По-русски
● Technological Infrastructure
– PostgreSQL.Org has 100% of its infrastructure
donated.
– PostgreSQL.Org infrastructure is global with
servers across the United States, South America
and Europe.
– The main website (www.postgresql.org) and the
primary software distribution points
(ftp[n].postgresql.org) are globally mirrored across
multiple dozens of hosts.

Infrastructure part drie
● Collaboration
– PostgreSQL.Org
● jabber.postgresql.org
● #postgresql
● #postgresql-us
● #postgresql-eu
– Lists:
● general, hackers, www, advocacy
– Wiki:
● http://wiki.postgresql.org

Goals
The most successful communities, whether
commercial, non commercial, organized, or
loosely formed have a mission.

Success stories
In April 2004, Mark Shuttleworth began to round up a small but
immensely talented and dedicated group of open source developers to
create a revolutionary new Linux desktop. Based on the principles of
time-based releases, a strong Debian foundation, the GNOME desktop,
and a strong commitment to freedom, this group operated initially under
the auspices of http://no-name-yet.com.

Ubuntu part δυο
Ubuntu in four years is one of the single most
widely distributed Linux distribution in the world to
end users.
And it is free (unlike our #1 competitor)

Can the Elephant do such a thing?
Need you ask?

Goal #1
Expand the community.

Expansion
Add mentoring contacts
Documented contacts for new community
members to approach for specific ideas.
Why? Because this is fundamentally a human
thing... mailing lists aren't human.

Goal #2
Excellence
in technology

Excellence in technology
Most of the features PostgreSQL has added in
recent releases are:
“Also has” (SQL/XML)
“Fixes for limitations of” (HOT)
It's time to break the mold. What is pushing the
boundaries of what we can do? Find that, and do
it.

Goal #3
Make our own path

Make our own path
It is time for the community to define:
●Hot
●Cool
●Next
●Db 2.0
Yes, I read Wired and Fast company on the
plane, twice.

Lastly
● In 2008, an Open Source PosgreSQL
distribution will have integrated replication.
● In 2008, you will have the opportunity for free
PostgreSQL training.
● In 2008, you will awake to a new world, without
dolphins.
● Tomorrow you will be able to ask any question
you like from Joshua Drake, Magnus Hagander
or Bruce Momjian.