UML, PostgreSQL Get Corporate Support 213
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'm a programmer (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good to Hear... (Score:4, 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...?
All Welcome and expected - expect more.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like Sun and HP funding the Apache group [apache.org]?
Or Novell and Ximian underwriting the Mono Project [mono-project.com]?
Or IBM contributing to F/OSS [ibm.com]?
Do you think these and other projects would be where they are today without the backing of serious money/resources?
Re:UML is pretty awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UML is pretty awesome (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Table spaces? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:OLAP still missing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's all fine and dandy, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
And that's a problem, because....? (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
PostGreSQL needs online backup (Score:1, Insightful)
I mean, what 24x7 application does not need to backup the database while concurrently running transactions?