Slashdot Mirror
UML, PostgreSQL Get Corporate Support
tcopeland writes "An article on NewsForge highlights some changes in the upcoming PostgreSQL release (v7.5) that are funded by Fujitsu. PostgreSQL core team member Josh Berkus says that "Tablespaces, Nested Transactions, and Java support" are being underwritten by Fujitsu; this has also been mentioned on the postgresql-hackers list. He also says that 7.5 will be "...the most significant new release of the software since version 7.0 almost four years ago". Good times for PostgreSQL users!" And ggoebel writes "Jeff Dike posted a notice to the UML [User-mode Linux] developers mailing list: 'The first bit of news is that as of last Monday, I am working for Intel. They
generously offered a full-time position, off-site, with my time mostly spent
on UML. This basically means that UML is no longer a part-time, after-hours
thing for me, so we should start seeing more work happening on it, especially
compared to the last month or two.'"
I suspect a lot of people here are. To me, and probably to most of them, UML is Unified Modelling Language. Hell, do a google search for UML and the top hit is to the UML website.
I know it's too much to ask OSS projects not to pick confusing acronyms and names, but I'd like to think that story submitters or at least editors could a little clearer.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
the primary DB System for so long has been MySQL.
Care to qualify that statement? Ever hear of Oracle? Or DB2 or SQL Server or Sybase or...?
Also this is consistent with the Open Source Paradigm. Where it is in the interests of companies to improve the software, and the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages of them not being exclusive. It is this philosophy, in my opinion, that will beat proprietary software models such as Microsoft, and it is these companies that are key in stopping those who want to halt the advancments of FOSS using idiotic patents and other invalid IP arguments.
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
The true benefit of projects such as this is their independence from the big brother corporations
You mean like Sun and HP funding the Apache group?
Or Novell and Ximian underwriting the Mono Project?
Or IBM contributing to F/OSS?
Do you think these and other projects would be where they are today without the backing of serious money/resources?
Sigs cause cancer.
Why are Wikis always touted as the solution to documentation, yet every time I try to find useful information in some project Wiki, it is always useless?
Ahh, there's a paper on VServers. Sounds kind of like jails with more separation. However, the filesystem separation of UML is a feature. VServers are good for completely managed hosting, I'm sure, but UML is the answer to people who want to get whole machines. Instead of leasing a computer to someone, you can lease a UML instance, and no matter what they do to it, they (in theory) cannot cause problems for anyone else.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I just think that, with the funding, the projects are encouraged in a certain direction. This isn't always bad, but seeing something with a "Optimized for the Pentium 4" logo always makes me wonder what would have happened if it didnt have this funding. (I would say the same thing if it was optimized for AMD)...
Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye... then its just fun.
That's one view of it. But consider that customers who pay for a hosting service are not out there to cause problems. They want the fastest service for the smallest price. The issue with UML hosting is that you cannot put nearly as many UML's on a single box as you would in VServer/Jail set up, and the end result is going to be that your service will be slower and more expensive.
They are going to reconsider this if someone can write a caching system that can beat the os but so far that hasn't happened.
It's a little more complicated I think. Using the filesystem has other advantages as well:
(1) PostgreSQL can work well with other applications running. Let's say you invent the best caching algorithm possible, then you still have two seperate caches, one for PostgreSQL and one for everything else. That means you have to dedicate the machine to PostgreSQL and have a high PostgreSQL cache (but any other app will suffer), or give postgres a low amount of cache space and it will suffer.
(2) The postgres developers don't want to worry about the bugs involved in making their own filesystem. Also, who's to say they can make a filesystem as fast right off the bat? It might be a huge development effort, with relatively minor benefit for most people.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
You've seen free software projects with "Optimized for the Pentium 4" on them?
I think people may not realize the extent to which free software development is already corporate-funded.
--Bruce Fields
I love PostgreSQL. I support Open Source. But I have to say: perhaps you shouldn't have forced a switch to PostgreSQL if it didn't actually meet all of your (and more importantly your company's) needs. Sounds like SQL Server was the better solution in this case.
That's not the same thing. If the higher ups at Oracle tell the Oracle developers to include a dubios feature that may be bug ridden, the developers DO IT because they were told to.
If IBM tells the apache group to put in dubious and buggy code, the apache group tells them to buzz off.
There is a difference, even if it isn't obvious at first glance.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
Desipite this being moderated offtopic, I found this to be true myself.
I suspect there are more system administrators reading slashdot than programmers.
So if you are being paid to program and you want to work with PostgreSQL, your best bet is to talk your current employer to switch.
That is because almost no one is hiring programmers for PostgreSQL or MySQL.
Or you can keep using Oracle or MSSQL and put marketable skills on your resume.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
I've used the OLAP stuff on SQL Server, and I honestly didn't find it much help. From what I saw, it was practically a *report writer* front-end on top of the underlying database--not nearly enough power for the problems my company has.
True OLAP often involves many layers of analysis, with many steps of processing. I had hoped that SQL Server OLAP would help manage all that, but it doesn't do enough. To be fair, there are some nice tools to graphically create what amouont to some stored procedures, but after a while, an experienced SQL developer will just revert to lots and lots of stored procedures chained together in a job that runs on a regular basis. Consequently, all that mysterious logic about *how* a number in the middle of an OLAP report came to be calculated is still stored in a procedure that can't easily be modified. OLAP in SQL Server gives the illusion that analysis is easy, but, alas, it is not.
I'd be curious to hear from others who have used SQL Server's OLAP and other tools like Cognos, Oracle, or Siebel, etc. What OLAP features *should* PostgreSQL adopt?
I mean, what 24x7 application does not need to backup the database while concurrently running transactions?