Re: about the european pug

On Wednesday 22 August 2007 13:01:06 Luca Ferrari wrote:
> Hi all,
> I'd like to know if someone has a plan or any idea about how we should
> start the work for the e-pug, and if he can share it in the mailing list,
> so we can discuss about.
>

hi everyone !

This is my first post on this list so i guess i have present myself... I'm a
member of postgresqlfr (the French speaking PostgreSQL Association) and
co-founder of dalibo (a french PostgreSQL oriented company ) along with
Jean-Paul Argudo.
My job consists mainly in organizing PostgreSQL training courses in
cooperation with Mandriva. On the IRC channel ( #postgresql-eu @ freenode ),
you can find me as "daamien". i'm here because i really wish to see an
European User Group in the near future.

That said, i'm gonna try in this message to make a short recap of what's
been told about the creation of an European PostgreSQL User Group. My
idea is not to be exhaustive , i just want to show where we are now to the
new users connected to the list.

You can read most of the original messages in the archive page of the former
mailing list, hosted there :
http://lists.wars-nicht.de/pipermail/pgeu-general/

A Little Bit of History
========================

I think that idea of an european user group is not quite new . But for the
first time, last month at pgday in Prato, people from different
communities ( Germany, France, italy, etc. ) gathered and talked seriously
about it. The
discussion continued via the pgsql-eu mailing list. (see archives above)

Here's the items that have been discussed so far :

Organization
=============

First point was about the legal status of the user group. It seems that
everyone agrees that the group must be a non-profit organization.
Furthermore it seems that among the different communities ( pgug.de, etc.
) , very few have legal satus . As far as i know , the french speaking
community has created a non-profit association in 2004 and i think the
turkish has done something like that too (devrim ?)

Some people discussed the idea that a local community association
could "upgrade" its status to embody the whole european community.
This is more or less what the mozilla guys have done. Mozilla Europe is a
non-profit association under the french law, devoted to promote Mozilla
stuff and help local communities all around Europe. But i'll talk more
about this in another e-mail. Stay tuned :-)

Goals
=========

Of course, most of these early talks were about defining the goals of the
user group... Quite logically, the following goals were proposed :

* Helping to get PostgreSQL more popular. Especially in smaller countries
with less active community.
* Fighting together to defend "European issues" (like encoding, FTS)
* organizing PostgreSQL related events
* sharing experiences
* editing membership cards
* selling merchandising material
* providing booth material ( Table cloth, etc. )
* paying some travel costs
* defining guideline for certification on PostgreSQL
* maintaining a web site

Please note that these are only items that have been discussed, some of them
make unanimty ( advocay ), others are more controversial ( website,
certification ) and nothing is written in stone for now...

I'll continue with more focussed topics :

Events
============

With the succes of pgDay.it , there is a clear consensus about the need of a
pgDay 2008 event. Wether it should be located in Prato again or it should
a "nomad event" (every year at the same period but in a different place) is
not decided yet.

Someone also talk about the idea of "pgdev" , an event dedicated to be a
gathering of PostgreSQL hackers, such as FOSDEM.

Website
=========

Some people ( Andreas ?) are already working on postgresql.eu to bring the
domain back into the PG infrastructure.

Now the big question is what do we put on this site ?! Here's the various
proposal :

* an agreggate from local website news
* a wiki
* an online shop
* lists of events

By the way, some people said it would be nice to have the same design rules
(same look and feel) on every pgug sites.

Thanks for reading this message ;-)
======================================

To conclude, i put below the websites of the active communities i know of :

Czech Rep. : http://www.pgsql.cz
France : http://www.postgresqlfr.org
Germany : http://www.pgug.de
Italia : http://www.psql.it
Polska : http://www.postgresql.org.pl
Turkey : http://www.postgresql.org.tr (?)

Regards,

--
damien clochard
http://dalibo.org | http://dalibo.com