Category Archives: open source

conference, open source, pgconference, postgres, postgresql , , , , , , , 2 Comments

PostgreSQL Conference – Keynote commentary

Theo Schlossnagle wrote a great blog post about Joshua Drake’s keynote. I wanted to respond to some of his comments here.

I totally agree with Theo that we need to be disruptive! One criticism I have had in the past of the PostgreSQL community is that it has been too centralized, and not willing to experiment with social networking, wikis and other non-hierarchical tools that will get more *end* *users* actively contributing.

I think all of that is changing with the creation of the PostgreSQL-EU and USPgA groups, and the fast uptake in PostgreSQL User Groups in the last few months.

Also, I also respectfully disagree with some comments that were made in other sessions about “us not wanting” the type of users that choose MySQL. *I* want those users to come to my user group meetings. There’s tons we can learn from each other.

We will make PostgreSQL better if we hear and respond directly to criticism from users of the most popular open source database. I’m not saying that Tom Lane and Bruce Momjian need to do that. PUGs should be doing this, filtering out the good/important stuff and communicating information back to -hackers and -core. That’s a great service the user groups can provide to postgresql.org.

Finally, I am so excited about a Baltimore/Washington PUG!! I had several people approach me about a group. I think even the MySQL guy will be interested. 🙂

conference, open source, pgconference, postgres, postgresql , 3 Comments

PostgreSQL Conference Day 1

I just got home from the EnterpriseDB party at Jasper’s. What a fantastic day at the conference!

I attended most of Brent Friedman’s Java and PostgreSQL talk. I do a little Java hacking for a legacy app, so the sysadmin-ish details about installation and upgrading were useful as I look forward to upgrading.

Andrew Sullivan

I really, really enjoyed Andrew Sullivan’s talk on Rapid Development as Denial of Service Attack. Not only is Andrew witty and sharp, he just nailed the people problems that are inherent in modern software design. I really liked his presentation style as well – tons of useful analogies. Some key bits:

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conference, pgconference, postgres, postgresql, user groups, USPA , ,

PostgreSQL Conference East – this Saturday and Sunday

We’re wrapping up all the little details for the conference:

  • Wireless access is secured! Each person will have their own account. You’ll receive it when you register.
  • Our final schedule is available!
  • The last few talks have been rolling in. I’m very excited about the round table Sunday morning with Joshua Drake (USPA and PostgreSQL SPI Liaison), Bruce Momjian (PostgreSQL Core) and Magnus Hagander (PostgreSQL-EU). Bring some questions! We’ll be on IRC taking remote questions as well.
  • I’ll be giving a talk on ptop Sunday too!
  • Also very excited to get together with other Women In Open Source!

We’re all getting together at the Greenbelt Chevy’s on Friday night. Let me know if you’d like to join. I’ve made a reservation for 20.

postgres, postgresql, USPA 2 Comments

United States PostgreSQL Association launched!

I’m excited to announce today that some members of the PostgreSQL community and I are launching the United States PostgreSQL Association.

Here’s the text from the press release:

The United States PostgreSQL Association is launched! Our draft mission can be found at http://www.postgresql.us. We will support PostgreSQL in the US through user group development, conferences,
education initiatives and fun.

We will be a sister organization to PostgreSQL EU, the Japanese PostgreSQL User Group, and other international PostgreSQL groups.

The founding members are Joshua Drake, Selena Deckelmann (me) and Michael Brewer.

Nomination and election of four additional board members will occur at the upcoming PostgreSQL Conference West, October 2008. General membership is open to anyone who wants to support the use of PostgreSQL in the US. The organization is being registered as a non-profit headquartered in Portland, OR, and we are applying for 501(c)3 status.

We are still working out details, but please watch http://www.postgresql.us for updates!

Questions, Comments? We’d love to hear from you. Please send us a message at board postgresql.us.

Look forward to more information over the next few days and weeks about our plans. In the meantime, you can have a look at our mission statement and goals.

pdxpug, postgres, postgresql, user groups 6 Comments

extreme database makeover: RT meeting recap

[Update: David Wheeler provided the SQL that came out of this meeting.]

Extreme Database Makeover: The crowd

Last night, PDXPUG and Code-n-Splode got together to refactor the database for RT. David Wheeler, Jeff Davis and Mark Wong led the discussion.

Through the course of the meeting, the group chose to pick out a few key features that would be better served if the database schema was more normalized, and offered a few new constraints we thought would help manage the data. Toward the end of the meeting, Igal suggested having a Perl workshop to refactor the code related to one or more of the database changes. The idea here was to be helpful, rather than just poking holes in the schema.

David started the discussion off with an introduction to RT. RT was created about 10 years ago by Jesse Vincent of Best Practical, and the database schema has been augmented over the years to accommodate new functionality. They support both MySQL and PostgreSQL as backends, and tend to dislike using database-specific technology.

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conference, open source, scale, volunteering, women, womenintech

Stormy Peters: Money, developers and creativity

DSC_0028.JPG

Sunday’s keynote at SCaLE was given by Stormy Peters. She talked about open source, business contributions and the social and financial economies driving development.

Three of her research questions were:

  • What is the initial motivation that encourages people to contribute?
  • How do companies pay for open source contributions? (and what’s the effect?)
  • How do companies change projects when they join?

DSC_0029.JPG

Her conclusion was that the developer community needs to teach businesses how to do things right for the community. We can’t wait for businesses to figure it out on their own. The call to action was a good one, but it seemed to leave some audience members scratching their heads. One audience member asked, “How do we do that?”

A few interesting figures she mentioned:

  • 1/3 of all developers believe that software should be free
  • Average number of open source projects a developer works on: 5
  • 40% of open source developers are paid to contribute
  • 10-20% are paid but their bosses don’t know it – that probably was a joke 😉

One quote that stuck with me was: “Typically people have been divided between left and right brain [professions].” I don’t agree. I think you only have to look briefly at the history of science to see that creativity (“right brain”) and reason (“left brain”) have often gone together.

The developer community just like many others – regular people who want to be useful, and inspired by their work. Creativity may not be asked for in a person’s work. But people invent, dream and create regardless of whether their profession requires it.

conference, open source, postgres, postgresql 2 Comments

At SCALE Feb 8-10

Just a quick note that I’ll be at SCALE February 8-10. I’ll be attending the Women in Open Source track (with maybe a quick side-trip to DOHCS: Mobile decision support in Tanzania), and then helping with the both Saturday and Sunday. You can direct message me on Twitter (selenamarie) if you’re interested in meeting up!

I’m also looking forward to the PostgreSQL BoF on Saturday night (8pm, Laguardia room), and maybe having some sunny weather!

conference, gender, open source, postgres, postgresql, women, womenintech 1 Comment

Women in Open Source: a focus group in March

Thanks to one of Audrey’s RSS feeds, I read Women in Computer Science – An Endangered Species of a New Kind? this afternoon. About the same time, I received email from a professor at UMD who is helping organize PostgreSQL Conference East. She would like to hold a Women in Open Source Focus Group session during the conference, and we’re looking for participants.

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conference, pdxpug, pgconference, portland, postgres, postgresql

winter break is over!

Sadly, my winter vacation is over. I needed a couple weeks to recharge after a crazy year of wrapping up old stuff (finally done with the ERP project) and starting lots new things (Legion of Tech, PostgreSQL Conferences, my first cyclocross race!).

If you’re interested in more about me, you can check out my profile at Portland On Fire, a new project from Raven Zachary about Portland residents. Raven is planning to profile a new person every day this year. I’m January 6.

Also, don’t forget about PostgreSQL Conference East. Registration will open this week! The call for papers will be open until February 3, 2008. I’ve got my work cut out for me arranging all the details from here, but I’m looking forward to working with some great community members out in College Park, MD.

I’m giving a talk on January 17th, titled “10 new things you can use in PostgreSQL version 8.3”. Last week, I felt like PDXPUG was running itself — we’ve got the next six months of talks lined up already. I’ll be publishing our calendar over on the PDXPUG blog tomorrow.