Re: 12 Silver Bullets

Bob,

> Agree..but doesn't it make sense to start with what is perceived as the
> head to head competitor in the open source space first?

Well, we want to have a story about how PostgreSQL compares to MySQL, but
ultimately it's not the market we or EDB wants. MySQL has a less than 3%
conversion rate of turning their users into paying customers; MySQL AB is
having enough trouble capitalizing their userbase, and the idea that we could
do better is fanciful. Also, a preoccupation with MySQL in our literature
would indicated to readers that *we* are obsessed with them as a competitor
and could actually end up boosting their image (like the famous Windows vs.
Linux campaign). So any MySQL-competitive rhetoric should be strictly
defensive and low-key.

Besides, MySQL is on the side of open source databases and when push comes to
shove we'll side with them against Oracle/Microsoft/IBM. We collaborate with
them on activites of joint concern, like PDO and OSS benchmarks, and steal
feature ideas from each other. Many of us in the community know the MySQL
developers personally and one PostgreSQL community member even works for
MySQL AB. So we're not out to "get" them. It's a friendly rivalry.

Or to put it another way: what do you want, Oracle & MS's $billions or MySQL's
$50m? I know what I want ...

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco