Re: MySQL Con 2008

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>...What MySQL Can Learn from PostgreSQL
> ...information on where people think MySQL can learn from PostgreSQL.

* Perhaps a bit on specific areas where both companies could
cooperate for the benefit of both.

One that comes to mind is that good and fair benchmarks would be
good for everyone. Customers and end users would obviously benefit
by seeing what use cases are better suited for each product;
and developers of both systems would benefit by quickly
seeing low-hanging fruit and existence proofs of optimizations.

* Perhaps a bit on BSD vs (dual CPL/Proprietary) licensing.

Note that MySQL's been on both sides on this since they
rely on the owned-by-Oracle-but-available-by-GPL innoDB;
and the pain they felt when Oracle bought Innobase mirrors
the pain that MySQL-the-company's customers feel when
dealing with MySQL's licenses.

> Specific topics will include:
> * User group initiation
> * Advocacy efforts

And to hopefully have such efforts focused on facts rather
than spreading outdated FUD against the other products.

> * The feature game

Does standards compliance and the importance of SQL200X fit
under features; or should it be a separate item?

One more related area to features is identifying useful
mysqlisms or postgre's QL's idiosyncrasies that both systems
might want to adopt. This might make life easier on customers
who use both products. I think the "replace/upsert" feature
is one that some postgresql users ask for.
> * How commercial friction invigorates the community

Seems they understand commercial friction - their relational
engine's owned by their biggest competitor. :-)

> * Induction of newbies

Ah yes - perhaps they'd like to adopt some of our community's welcoming
initiation/hazing rituals such as "thou must abbreviate MySQL as Mys
and pronounce it as Mice Q. L."