On 17 Sep 2002 at 16:11, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > > What I can't understand is the attitude of some people here. Yes, > > Microsoft are evil, but the bottom line is, millions of people use > > Windows. Just look at the number of downloads for pgAdmin (shown at > > http://www.pgadmin.org/downloads/) - the last stable version has clocked > > up over 38,000 downloads, the preview I released just a couple of weeks > > ago, 2230 at the time of writing. I know from talking to some of the > > users that often people download copies for themselves and their > > colleagues, so we can probably assume there are actually 40,000+ > > PostgreSQL users that use Windows reguarly enough to want pgAdmin. What > > happens if you add in the pgAccess/Windows users, Tora, or pgExplorer? > > How many of these people would want to run PostgreSQL on Windows as > > well? > I actually think that the long-term survival of Postgres DEPENDS on our > Win32 support. Otherwise, we'll just get massacred by MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle > and Firebird who do support Win32.
Let's move this to general. But I disagree. History says that nobody can compete with microsoft on microsoft platform. Postgres will not be competing with either SQL Server or access. It would remain as toy database.. As far as people using mysql on windows, I have couple of colleages here who got things crowling for some heavy load, something like 60GB database with 512MB compq workstations.. Let's leave it. The main point to focus postgres on unix is not only because unix is proven/known as robust and scalable, but unix is much more standard to support across multiple OS. The amount with which windows differs from unices on API level, any serious efforts to make postgresql good enough on windows whould be a mammoth task. I haven't tried either port of postgres on windows but I would not bet on any of them. > Users of Postgres are our lifeblood. The more users we have the more I agree but even as of now, not even 1% users comes on any of postgres lists, in my estimate. So if users are not providing their feedback, what's the point in open source? (Actually all those people do help postgres by publicising it but still feedback remains an important phase of open source software engineering..) > developers we get, the more testing we get and the more likely we are to get > money, corporate support, etc. Our ODBC driver will also be improved. I agree for ODBC but that can be done without giving much to postgresql windows port as well. I understand windows port of postgresql remains very much important for people who want to evaluate it. But for some good evaluation, I would rather recommend them trying postgresql on linux rather than windows. There are limits as what postgresql can do on windows and probably postgresql development team can't do much about many of them.. No offense to anybody.. just some opinions.. Bye Shridhar -- Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well- being. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html
