Thread

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Jason Earl <jdearl@yahoo.com> — 2000-10-10T21:59:18Z

--- Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> wrote:
> > It is merely a conflict of interest issue.  Same
> issue in law as having
> > attorney's from the same firm on the side of
> defendant and plaintiff.  If
> > the plaintiff is a multi-million dollar client and
> the defendant is
> > pro-bono... there is concern about bias.
> > 
> > Congratulations is in order for Mr. Momjian.  I'm
> not saying he should or
> > shouldn't work for them.  I'm just playing devil's
> advocate.
> 
> The interesting issue here is that law firms by
> nature are adviserial. 
> My paper showed that most issues are actually ones
> of companies managing
> a shared resource, so the analogy is not quite
> accurate.

Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
emulator.

Extra care will need to be taken to make sure that
pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org is still the central
hacker clearing-house, but that shouldn't be too
difficult.

And if worse comes to worse and Great Bridge does try
to take PostgreSQL in an unhealthy direction we can
easily vote with our feet.  After all, both Interbase
and <gasp> MySQL are available under very liberal
terms (as are previous and current versions of
PostgreSQL which could even be forked).  Great Bridge
knows that, and they will undoubtedly do all they can
to make sure that we users are happy.  After all, they
are essentially a service organization.

I just don't see what the conflict might be.  It's not
like Great Bridge is going to hold Bruce's family
hostage and force him to rewrite PostgreSQL in Cobol. 
In fact, Great Bridge had better treat their employees
very well or they will find that their are greener
pastures somewhere else.  Not only would Great Bridge
lose a very knowledgeable employee, but Bruce could
take his source with him when he went to his new
employer.

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Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2000-10-10T22:43:30Z

> Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
> a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
> we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
> else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
> Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
> emulator.

All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Ned Lilly <ned@greatbridge.com> — 2000-10-10T23:01:05Z

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 
> > Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
> > a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
> > we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
> > else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
> > Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
> > emulator.
> 
> All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)


"He's a PostgreSQL wizard, there's got to be a twist..."
 


-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Ned Lilly                     e: ned@greatbridge.com
Vice President                w: www.greatbridge.com
Evangelism / Hacker Relations        v: 757.233.5523
Great Bridge, LLC                    f: 757.233.5555

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Mitch Vincent <mitch@venux.net> — 2000-10-10T23:03:17Z

But think of the commercial possibilities for a PostgrePinball!
:-)

This was exactly my point earlier, it's not like GB is going to take
PostgreSQL commercial or out of the Open Source community (they're business
revolves around Open Source products) -- the same guys are developing it and
they're heading in the same direction that they were 6 months ago before GB
came onto the scene -- to a better RDBMS!

What's in PostgreSQL's best interests is (I think) in Great Bridge's best
interest. They want to sell products and services based on or around
PostgreSQL. If anything I think we'll see PostgreSQL get a lot better now
that the developers can make a living doing what they had previously done
away from their "real job".. More power to GB, PostgreSQL and the core
developers...

-Mitch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: "Jason Earl" <jdearl@yahoo.com>
Cc: "PostgreSQL-general" <    >
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job


> > Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
> > a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
> > we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
> > else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
> > Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
> > emulator.
>
> All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)
>
> --
>   Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
>   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
>   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
>   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
>

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2000-10-10T23:30:49Z

> I just don't see what the conflict might be.  It's not
> like Great Bridge is going to hold Bruce's family
> hostage and force him to rewrite PostgreSQL in Cobol. 
> In fact, Great Bridge had better treat their employees
> very well or they will find that their are greener
> pastures somewhere else.  Not only would Great Bridge
> lose a very knowledgeable employee, but Bruce could
> take his source with him when he went to his new
> employer.

Well, there is a non-compete, and though I can't go into it in detail,
it is not possible to do that if the new company is similar to Great
Bridge.  Of course, we all did this for free before, so we can certainly
do that again.

Clearly, each of us realizes we hold the trust of the group, and do not
want to betray that trust.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2000-10-11T03:20:20Z

Ned Lilly <ned@greatbridge.com> writes:
>>>> Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
>>>> emulator.
>> 
>> All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)

> "He's a PostgreSQL wizard, there's got to be a twist..."

rotfl ... where's the C&C warning on this?

			regards, tom lane

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Adam Lang <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com> — 2000-10-11T12:54:52Z

Ah but remember... what is a "better RDBMS" to a company may be different
than one for the open source community.

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mitch Vincent" <mitch@venux.net>
To: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job


> But think of the commercial possibilities for a PostgrePinball!
> :-)
>
> This was exactly my point earlier, it's not like GB is going to take
> PostgreSQL commercial or out of the Open Source community (they're
business
> revolves around Open Source products) -- the same guys are developing it
and
> they're heading in the same direction that they were 6 months ago before
GB
> came onto the scene -- to a better RDBMS!
>
> What's in PostgreSQL's best interests is (I think) in Great Bridge's best
> interest. They want to sell products and services based on or around
> PostgreSQL. If anything I think we'll see PostgreSQL get a lot better now
> that the developers can make a living doing what they had previously done
> away from their "real job".. More power to GB, PostgreSQL and the core
> developers...
>
> -Mitch
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
> To: "Jason Earl" <jdearl@yahoo.com>
> Cc: "PostgreSQL-general" <    >
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 3:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
>
>
> > > Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
> > > a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
> > > we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
> > > else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
> > > Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
> > > emulator.
> >
> > All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)
> >
> > --
> >   Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
> >   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
> >   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
> >   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania
19026
> >

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 2000-10-11T14:08:11Z

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Adam Lang wrote:

> Ah but remember... what is a "better RDBMS" to a company may be different
> than one for the open source community.

then that company is welcome to take the open source code, and distribute
it under their own name ... it doesn't affect us any ...

> 
> Adam Lang
> Systems Engineer
> Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mitch Vincent" <mitch@venux.net>
> To: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 7:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
> 
> 
> > But think of the commercial possibilities for a PostgrePinball!
> > :-)
> >
> > This was exactly my point earlier, it's not like GB is going to take
> > PostgreSQL commercial or out of the Open Source community (they're
> business
> > revolves around Open Source products) -- the same guys are developing it
> and
> > they're heading in the same direction that they were 6 months ago before
> GB
> > came onto the scene -- to a better RDBMS!
> >
> > What's in PostgreSQL's best interests is (I think) in Great Bridge's best
> > interest. They want to sell products and services based on or around
> > PostgreSQL. If anything I think we'll see PostgreSQL get a lot better now
> > that the developers can make a living doing what they had previously done
> > away from their "real job".. More power to GB, PostgreSQL and the core
> > developers...
> >
> > -Mitch
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
> > To: "Jason Earl" <jdearl@yahoo.com>
> > Cc: "PostgreSQL-general" <    >
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 3:43 PM
> > Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
> >
> >
> > > > Great Bridge is interested in turning PostgreSQL into
> > > > a world class database system.  As users of PostgreSQL
> > > > we all benefit from their paying Bruce (and whoever
> > > > else) to work on it full time.  It's not like Great
> > > > Bridge wants to turn PostgreSQL into a pinball machine
> > > > emulator.
> > >
> > > All right, who leaked the Great Bridge product plans.  :-)
> > >
> > > --
> > >   Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
> > >   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
> > >   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
> > >   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania
> 19026
> > >
> 
> 

Marc G. Fournier                   ICQ#7615664               IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Matthew N. Dodd <winter@jurai.net> — 2000-10-12T06:37:59Z

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Adam Lang wrote:
> Ah but remember... what is a "better RDBMS" to a company may be
> different than one for the open source community.

I'm not sure I see that...

The one place where GB can get burned is if they spend lots of time/money
implementing a feature and then attempt to recoup their investment by
holding said feature back from the PGSQL source tree.  If someone else
duplicates that feature and it is accepted into the tree before GB has
covered their expenses GB would now be out some amount of money and have
at worst, a continual wart they would have to maintain outside the tree,
or at best a consolidation of features with the opensource version of the
feature.  Having redundant code would be somewhere in the middle.
</runon>

The real question is this:  At some point in the future the PostgreSQL
project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely
with the commercial ventures working with them.  Will this cause problems?  
Will such a decision cause a split?

-- 
| Matthew N. Dodd  | '78 Datsun 280Z | '75 Volvo 164E | FreeBSD/NetBSD  |
| winter@jurai.net |       2 x '84 Volvo 245DL        | ix86,sparc,pmax |
| http://www.jurai.net/~winter | This Space For Rent  | ISO8802.5 4ever |

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2000-10-12T07:31:55Z

"Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> writes:
> The one place where GB can get burned is if they spend lots of time/money
> implementing a feature and then attempt to recoup their investment by
> holding said feature back from the PGSQL source tree.

I can say with a good deal of confidence that this is not part of GB's
vision of how to play the game.  (Can't speak for pgsql.com or any other
potential commercial players, however.)  GB is building their company on
the assumption that open source is the best way to develop software, so
it makes no sense to do any proprietary-style development.

I am more concerned about conflicts like "well, today I could work on
feature-or-bug-fix A that some paying customer of GB's is requesting,
or I could work on feature-or-bug-fix B that IMHO would be of wider
interest --- but isn't currently being requested by a paying customer".
Or worse, "paying customer FOO wants some feature that I think would
be actively bad for most people".  To the extent that paying customers
are representative of the whole community, this shouldn't be a huge
problem, but I'm sure that it will come up.

> The real question is this:  At some point in the future the PostgreSQL
> project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely
> with the commercial ventures working with them.  Will this cause problems?  

Hm, I'm having a hard time visualizing why this might happen.  Could you
provide an example?

			regards, tom lane

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Adam Lang <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com> — 2000-10-12T14:13:28Z

Correct...I'm not saying corporate is going to try to proprietize (or
however you spell it :)) it.  That I will say I don't think can happen...
(Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also,
correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that
is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).

I mentioned off list a possible example.  MySQL and/or PHP.  They are open
source, but their interest is in corporate.  They go in directions that is
not in the open source best interest, but in corporate best interest...
granted, they aren't the same situation as postgres either, but the concern
would be that if 50% or over of a core steering/direction group were
employed by a single company, some direction may inadvertently taken that
serves the company better than the open source.  Also, this is not an attack
that it would be done with evil intent.

But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on
reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net>
Cc: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>;
<pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 3:31 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job


> I can say with a good deal of confidence that this is not part of GB's
> vision of how to play the game.  (Can't speak for pgsql.com or any other
> potential commercial players, however.)  GB is building their company on
> the assumption that open source is the best way to develop software, so
> it makes no sense to do any proprietary-style development.
>
> I am more concerned about conflicts like "well, today I could work on
> feature-or-bug-fix A that some paying customer of GB's is requesting,
> or I could work on feature-or-bug-fix B that IMHO would be of wider
> interest --- but isn't currently being requested by a paying customer".
> Or worse, "paying customer FOO wants some feature that I think would
> be actively bad for most people".  To the extent that paying customers
> are representative of the whole community, this shouldn't be a huge
> problem, but I'm sure that it will come up.
>
> > The real question is this:  At some point in the future the PostgreSQL
> > project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely
> > with the commercial ventures working with them.  Will this cause
problems?
>
> Hm, I'm having a hard time visualizing why this might happen.  Could you
> provide an example?
>
> regards, tom lane

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> — 2000-10-12T14:17:07Z

Adam Lang wrote:
> (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also,
> correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that
> is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).

PostgreSQL is not under the GPL.  PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD
license -- which means there is no license restriction on
'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code.
 
> But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on
> reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)

This is the real safeguard.

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Adam Lang <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com> — 2000-10-12T14:21:11Z

May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL.

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lamar Owen" <lamar.owen@wgcr.org>
To: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>
Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job


> Adam Lang wrote:
> > (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free
also,
> > correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on
that
> > is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).
>
> PostgreSQL is not under the GPL.  PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD
> license -- which means there is no license restriction on
> 'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code.
>
> > But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold
on
> > reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)
>
> This is the real safeguard.
>
> --
> Lamar Owen
> WGCR Internet Radio
> 1 Peter 4:11

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 2000-10-12T23:09:18Z

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Adam Lang wrote:

> May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL.

what a narrow view on open source ... most core internet open source
software is *not* GPL ... sendmail, INN, bind, isc-dhcp, apache, X11Rn,
etc ...

 > 
> Adam Lang
> Systems Engineer
> Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lamar Owen" <lamar.owen@wgcr.org>
> To: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>
> Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 10:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job
> 
> 
> > Adam Lang wrote:
> > > (Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free
> also,
> > > correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on
> that
> > > is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).
> >
> > PostgreSQL is not under the GPL.  PostgreSQL has (and always had) a BSD
> > license -- which means there is no license restriction on
> > 'proprietizing' PostgreSQL code.
> >
> > > But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold
> on
> > > reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)
> >
> > This is the real safeguard.
> >
> > --
> > Lamar Owen
> > WGCR Internet Radio
> > 1 Peter 4:11
> 
> 

Marc G. Fournier                   ICQ#7615664               IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Gunnar R|nning <gunnar@candleweb.no> — 2000-10-13T01:49:33Z

"Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com> writes:

> May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL.
> 

> > > correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on

Of course both lincenses can be the basis of propriatery efforts(GPL and
Apache(BSD style licenses). My company used to  prefere investing in GPL SW
because of the lack of the adv. clause.

regards, 

	Gunnar

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Alex Pilosov <alex@pilosoft.com> — 2000-10-13T02:25:34Z

On 13 Oct 2000, Gunnar R|nning wrote:

> "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com> writes:
> 
> > May bad... sometimes it is too easy assuming everything open source is GPL.
> > 
> 
> > > > correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on
> 
> Of course both lincenses can be the basis of propriatery efforts(GPL and
> Apache(BSD style licenses). My company used to  prefere investing in GPL SW
> because of the lack of the adv. clause.
This is sort of a red herring. BSD style is just that, BSD style. _most_
BSD-style licenses (and _the_ BSD license of Regents of UC) removed the
'obnoxious advertising' clause. 

There are other reasons to prefer BSD-style over GPL, but this isn't one.

Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

Dan Moschuk <dan@freebsd.org> — 2000-10-13T08:19:47Z

| > Of course both lincenses can be the basis of propriatery efforts(GPL and
| > Apache(BSD style licenses). My company used to  prefere investing in GPL SW
| > because of the lack of the adv. clause.
| This is sort of a red herring. BSD style is just that, BSD style. _most_
| BSD-style licenses (and _the_ BSD license of Regents of UC) removed the
| 'obnoxious advertising' clause. 
| 
| There are other reasons to prefer BSD-style over GPL, but this isn't one.

True, but the advertising clause in _the_ BSD license was only just removed
a little while ago...

-- 
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
                -- Oscar Wilde