Hi Jim/Melvin and all,
Music industry is a good example where too low charges has damaged it. People
in the industry will tell you that not enough young talent are coming through
the system. I do agree that there is some corruption but there is no escaping
the fact that the industry's turn over has seen a massive decline.
Sun Microsystem is even a closer example and why Oracle has taken Google to
court over java licenses. Basically they need to make money to support product
developments.
Even the community version has costs associated with it.
Incidentally the original posting was hoping to replicate the success of Ubuntu
and their use of code of conduct.
Hence my comments about issues that will help the success of PostgreSQL more
directly.
I for one would not ignore code of conduct if there was one. Hopefully others
would have the courtesy to do the same.
Hope this clarifies all the points.
-Original Message-
From: James Keener [mailto:j...@jimkeener.com]
Sent: 06 January 2016 15:54
To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert'; pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Charging for PostgreSQL
As Melvin mentioned, this belongs in a new thread.
> Just one last example. Consider the music industry. For years Apple amongst
> others promoted low cost per unit downloads and then streaming. We all know
> the history.
>
> Once a thriving industry music industry has been decimated. Neither the
> musicians nor song writers receive proper income any more.
> All the major players recognise its current state is unsustainable.
So? In an odd twist of things, the developers here are either being paid to
work on PostgreSQL or are _volunteering_ their time. It would be extremely rude
to take their _volunteered_ time and profit from it.
Ditto for support, such as this forum and the IRC channel.
We can debate the music industry all day. My view is that it's inefficient,
corrupt, and poorly managed. A more streamlined system would result in more
money to the artists themselves. They are not a good comparison to a F/OSS
project.
> *I am sure neither of us want to see postgresql to falter.*
And I have no idea how you think charging for PostgreSQL won't make it falter.
People will move to other free databases or move to paid offerings along the
thought process of "no one was ever fired for buying ibm"
> Of course the right balance needs to be struck but for me at least the idea
> of free lunch has had its day.
How does PostgreSQL being free affect you in a _negative_ way? This "free
lunch" is the reason we have the technology and world that we do.
I'm honestly curious why you have an issue with this. Not charging for code has
not prevented a plethora of other projects from having a growing community.
Those issues become moot when you force the community to disappear. We need to
understand what keeps new devs away and fix it
-- not simply force everyone away.
> There can be a low enough charge that people don't feel too much of a pinch
> but enough to sustain the progress of postgresql.
No. There can't. Going from free to anything will decrease your user base,
especially when there are free alternatives and very large, and
(unfortunately) trusted names you can pay for a database. I've dealt with this
at many companies.
> I genuinely don't like arguments over emails. These are complex issues.
I personally find it easier than arguing in person. But to each his own.
If you don't like arguing then there is nothing that says you must argue.
> Again I for one will continue to support postgresql team whatever their
> decision may be.
That decision has already been made. Unless you can overcome the _idealogical_
reason that PostgreSQL is F/OSS in the first place, then I'm not sure this is
an argument worth continuing.
Jim
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: pgsql-general-ow...@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-ow...@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of James Keener
> Sent: 06 January 2016 15:04
> To: FarjadFarid(ChkNet); 'Karsten Hilbert';
> pgsql-general@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Code of Conduct: Is it time?
>
>> My only aim is further progress of postgresql.
> Charging for it would do exactly that. Most people would simply switch to
> MySQL (or Maria) or stop upgrading/upgrade to a fork.
>
>> As per Sun Microsystem’s case charging zero dollars (for Java and
>> mysql) means there is zero income.
> Why do you think this is a company? There _are_ companies that offer support
> and coding. While I'm sure everyone would agree that developers should be
> able to eat (and more/better than Raman), the point of the "The PostgreSQL
> Global Development Group" and being "The world's most advanced open source
> database" is not to become Ellison. The commercial support and consulting
> offerings are there to make the money. The rest of us plebs just have to help
> each other out.
>
> Had PostgreSQL started out/never became open source, we woul
