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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.'"

7 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. I'm a programmer by Tim+C · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  2. Re:Good to Hear... by nojomofo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...?

  3. All Welcome and expected - expect more.. by eamacnaghten · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This is great news, not only for the projects involved, but for FOSS in general.

    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.

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  4. Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... by SIGALRM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

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  5. Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... by Mr.+Spontaneous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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)...

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  6. Re:Table spaces? by jadavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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  7. Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... by Sxooter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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