I've deliberately let the dust settle slightly on this.

One thing that might help is a more open sponsorship "clearing house".
Example (not meant as a bid, but just to illustrate): the JDBC driver
needs a scanner overhaul - it breaks on dollar quoting and a bunch of
other stuff. I could do that work (as could others, of course) but I
don't have time, unless someone buys some of my professional time.
Someone might want to do just that, but how would they find me?

Regarding the secret code stuff - I predict that it will quickly bite
whoever does it, unless they are extremely lucky.

cheers

andrew


Bruce Momjian wrote:

>I am very excited to see companies involved in PostgreSQL development.
>It gives us funding for developers and features that is new for us. We
>had Fujitsu funding some features for 8.0 and that really helped us.
>
>However, there was a lot of coordination that happened with Fujitsu that
>I don't see happening with the current companies involved. Companies
>are already duplicating work that is also done by community members or
>by other companies. The big issue is communication. Because the
>PostgreSQL code base is common for most of the companies involved, there
>has to be coordination in what they are working on and their approaches.
>
>If that doesn't happen, two companies will work on the same feature, and
>only one can be added, or a complex process of merging the two patches
>into one patch has to happen --- again duplicated effort. I am willing
>to do the coordination, or even better, have the companies involved
>publicly post their efforts so all the other companies can know what
>is happening. I realize this is hard for companies because their
>efforts are in some ways part of their profitability. Does
>profitability require duplication of effort and code collisions? I am
>not sure, but if it does, we are in trouble. I am not sure the
>community has the resources to resolve that many collisions.
>
>Second, some developers are being hired from the community to work on
>closed-source additions to PostgreSQL. That is fine and great, but one
>way to kill PostgreSQL is to hire away its developers. If a commercial
>company wanted to hurt us, that is certainly one way they might do it.
>Anyway, it is a concern I have. I am hoping community members hired to
>do closed-source additions can at least spend some of their time on
>community work.
>
>And finally, we have a few companies working on features that they
>eventually want merged back into the PostgreSQL codebase. That is a
>very tricky process and usually goes badly unless the company seeks
>community involvement from the start, including user interface,
>implementation, and coding standards.
>
>I hate to be discouraging here, but I am trying to communicate what we
>have learned over the past few years to help companies be effective in
>working with open source communities. I am available to talk to any
>company that wants further details.
>
>
>

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