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Why Oracle Can't Easily Kill PostgreSQL
ruphus13 writes "Claiming that 'PostgreSQL is a FOSS alternative to MySQL and hence Oracle should be allowed to pursue MySQL' is a specious argument, according to Monty Widenius. He fears that Oracle, or someone else, can easily squash PostgreSQL by just 'buying out' the top 20 developers. The Postgre community has fired back, calling that claim ridiculous. According to the article, 'PostgreSQL as a project is pretty healthy, and shows how vulnerable projects like MySQL are to the winds of change. PostgreSQL could die tomorrow, if a huge group of its contributors dropped out for one reason or another and the remainder of the community didn't take up the slack. But that's exceedingly unlikely. The existing model for PostgreSQL development ensures that no single entity can control it, it can't be purchased, and if someone decides to fork the project, the odds are that the remaining community would be strong enough to continue without a serious glitch.'"
I would like to have a list of serious companies using PostgreSQL for serious stuff
PostgreSQL Featured Users; Quotes has additional detail about the scope of some of those. Most people are probably familiar with names like Skype and Cisco on there, but less well known companies like NTT are huge too--and they even sponsor a good chunk of PostgreSQL development because it's so heavily used there.
And those are just the public record. Because of its BSD license, PostgreSQL also gets used in plenty of places that don't talk about what they're doing with it. For example, I've worked with financial companies that are cutting loose Oracle for PostgreSQL whenever feasible, and with some US defense companies that use PostGIS for geographic databases. (looks out window) I may have already said too much.