As long as postgres is open source and free, postgres never has to worry
about the commercial competition (in my eyes). i have far more faith in
the postgresql developers to implement features and standards than i do in
the commercial vendors of similar systems.
in commercial enterprises such as Oracle, INnformix and Sybase, whether to
implement a feature or part of a standard gets boiled down to a business
decision/question -- will adding this or that create more profit for the
company? if the answer is no, the feature or standard spec dies.
at postgres the story is different. the question is, will the feature be
useful? if the answer is yes, unless it is beyond the scope of the
developers, it will get implemented. whereas the commercial vendors claim
to be customer focused, i don't see daily emails from larry ellison
telling me whats new and what's being considered for change etc. etc.
i'm sticking with the group that has time andd again proven itself to be
the group which delivers, foreign keys will come soon enough. The
glitches in vacuum will go away soon enough. Outer, left, right and
combinations of these joins will come soon enough. And all of this i get
for free.
Postgres offered banner ads for a while. SPeaking of promoting it, is
postgres willing to create a logo a la apache, powered by postgresql?
it'll be up on my site in no time at all.
steve doliov