Letters from the open source trenches - Postgres community

Selena Deckelmann

PostgreSQL Global Development Group
Major Contributor
User Group Liaison

We know the
world is changing.

“People today seek and
consume information in
considerably different
ways than the past.”

http://mashable.com/2009/03/30/microsoft-encarta-to-close/

“Seven-Eleven Japan... pushes buying
decisions down to the salesclerks at
its 13,000 Japanese stores.”

More than 200,000 salesclerks make
informed decisions, using software
and the scientiﬁc method,
about what to buy, and when.
Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2011
“Leadership in IT, Four Questions Every CEO Should Ask About IT”

How do we get so
many people to
collaborate?

Ingredients

• Revision control
• Peer review
• Public discussion forums

Open source
pwns collaboration.

Postgres
pwns collaboration that
produces awesome code.

What is Postgres?
• Database Management System
• Relational Database
• ANSI-SQL:2008 standard
160 of 179 core conformance features
• PostGIS
• Collaborative software development platform

http://www.postgresql.org/about/featurematrix

Databases are:

“An operating system
without sound-drivers.”

What is the PostgreSQL
Global Development Group?

PostgreSQL Global
Development Group

• ~300 developers contribute per year
• 1000s on discussion/review mailing lists
• Major user group communities in Japan,
US, Brazil, Europe, Russia

Who makes up the
Postgres community?

User

Deployer-Developer
Extending
Co-Developer
Co-Developer

Free Software
Commons

From http://webmink.com/essays/community-types/

Where we
are growing
the fastest
{ User

Deployer-Developer

}
Extending
Co-Developer Postgres
Co-Developer has always
focused here

Free Software
Commons


User

Where
MySQL
focused { Deployer-Developer
Extending
Co-Developer

}
Co-Developer
Where they
are growing
Free Software now
Commons


Some PostgreSQL Global
Development Group Sponsors

Letters from the open source trenches - Postgres community

All hiring, all seeking open source software skills.

“[C]ommunities are composed of individuals
who collaborate toward a common goal but
do not share a common employer
and are not governed by an
employment hierarchy.”

The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing
Sponsored Open Source Communities
Joel West and Siobhán O’Mahony

“Companies or foundations that run open
source project are not software ﬁrms, they
are community management ﬁrms
whose communities happen to
make software. “

http://eaves.ca/2006/12/17/community-management-as-open-sources-core-competency/

Proprietary Development

http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/adoption_and_trends.pdf

Open Source
Development

http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/adoption_and_trends.pdf

We require these tools.

• Revision control
• Peer review
• Public discussion forums

Development work

• Revision control - We share our git repos:
http://git.postgresql.org
• Peer review - our tool for patch review:
http://commitfest.postgresql.org
• Public Discussion Forums - hackers list:
pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org

Results

• Yearly releases
• Reputation for excellent code
• Growing developer community
• Reputation for rejecting patches

Key pre 9.1 Features

• Transactional DDL
• Recursive queries
• Built-in replication (async AND sync in 9.1)
• Multiple-language support for database-side
programming

DO
$$
HAI

BTW
Calculate
pi
using
Gregory-‐Leibniz
series

BTW
This
method
does
not
converge
particularly
quickly...

I
HAS
A
PIADD
ITZ
0.0

I
HAS
A
PISUB
ITZ
0.0

I
HAS
A
ITR
ITZ
0

I
HAS
A
T1

I
HAS
A
T2

I
HAS
A
PI
ITZ
0.0

I
HAS
A
ITERASHUNZ
ITZ
1000

IM
IN
YR
LOOP

T1
R
QUOSHUNT
OF
4.0
AN
SUM
OF
3.0
AN
ITR

T2
R
QUOSHUNT
OF
4.0
AN
SUM
OF
5.0
AN
ITR

PISUB
R
SUM
OF
PISUB
AN
T1

PIADD
R
SUM
OF
PIADD
AN
T2

ITR
R
SUM
OF
ITR
AN
4.0

BOTH
SAEM
ITR
AN
BIGGR
OF
ITR
AN
ITERASHUNZ,
O
RLY?

YA
RLY,
GTFO

OIC

IM
OUTTA
YR
LOOP

PI
R
SUM
OF
4.0
AN
DIFF
OF
PIADD
AN
PISUB

VISIBLE
"PI
R:
"

VISIBLE
PI

FOUND
YR
PI
KTHXBYE
$$
LANGUAGE
PLLOLCODE;

Hot in 9.1!
Things other databases also do:

• Unlogged tables performance with ephemeral
Less consistency for better
data, and NoSQL buzzword compliance

• Writable Common Table Expressions
Recursive queries that update data

• Per-Column Collations sorting words in Farsi and
True multi-language support (e.g.
Swedish correctly in the same table, in separate columns)

Hot in 9.1!
Things we are ﬁrst to do:

• SE-Postgres Control integration with SE-Linux
Mandatory Access

• Extensions framework for easily installing,
CREATE EXTENSION
removing and updating extensions to Postgres.
And launch of PGXN network: http://pgxn.org

Hot in 9.1!
Things we are ﬁrst to do:

• Synchronous replication to prevent data loss.
Create synchronous standby databases
Includes "transaction-controlled synchronous commit"

• SQL-MED data source access that enables
Easy-to-use remote
transparent usage as a table (SELECT and JOIN)

• K-Nearest-Neighbor Indexing
Permits doing an indexed search of "what's near me".

We still have bugs.

We still have an epic todo list.

We still need people of every ability.

So, how do you get
involved?

Download 9.1 Beta 1!
(on Monday)

Commitfest tool

http://bit.ly/pgdevnow

Volunteer.
Blog, answer email, join #postgresql,
write documentation, test features,
make things with Postgres, tweet,
help organize meetings, create olypug,
give a talk, do a translation...

Thanks!

Contact me: selena@postgresql.org
Twitter: @selenamarie
Blog: http://chesnok.com

Credits:

Bruce Momjian (Proprietary vs Open Source
development style)

Joshua Tolley (PL/LOLCODE)

Letters from the open source trenches - Postgres community

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