9 ms·

Who Contributed to PostgreSQL Development in 2020 and 2021?

101 points by craigkerstiens 5y ago

jmarbert 5y ago
Much love to every single one of you!
sydthrowaway 5y ago
Who is Tom Lane?
- authorityofnil 5y ago
  A single google search resulted in their wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lane_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lane_(computer_scientist)
fraktl 5y ago
rvr_ 5y ago
And there's still people who don't believe in 10x programmers...
- jeltz 5y ago
  Tom Lane is the best example of a 10x programmer that I have met. Really humble and nice too when you meet him in real life.
- fraktl 5y ago
- maclockard 5y ago
  That's assuming that these people only contribute to PostgreSQL. I'm betting most of the folks listed here make major contributions on other projects or at work. Your comment feels like a bit of unfair judgement, particularly since a lot of those you are implying that are 'only 1x programmers' are effectively donating their time.
richardwhiuk 5y ago
It'd be interesting to see this broken down by organization - i.e. who is funding this development.
- notatoad 5y ago
  not quite what you're asking for, but mostly to satisfy my own curiosity here's the employers of the top 35, pulled from either the postgresql contributor list or linkedin https://pastebin.com/GYbsEkSu https://pastebin.com/GYbsEkSu https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
  - lfittl 5y ago
    And for fun, I ended up doing the same in parallel for the 2021 data: https://gist.github.com/lfittl/2f112698f908d38f43f4f2aeaaa947f7 https://gist.github.com/lfittl/2f112698f908d38f43f4f2aeaaa94... Note that some of the folks on the list have changed jobs in the last 2 years, so it wouldn't be accurate to attribute all contributions to the current employer (plus some folks contribute on their own time). Also, the EDB / 2ndquadrant acquisition has led to a lot of EDB-attributed contributions, which hopefully will last :) Edit: FWIW, I think your 2020 list has Tom Lane working for Google - thats not accurate (I think you got the wrong one from LinkedIn), as he is still employed by Crunchy Data (since leaving Salesforce in 2015), to my knowledge.
    - samcrawford 5y ago
      I hadn't heard of Tom Lane before. But his prolificness in contributing led me to search for him. And wow. He has quite a history. Co-author or the PNG spec. Major contributor to JPEG's success. Not to mention postgres. At 66 years old and still so actively involved! Very impressive
    - notatoad 5y ago
      Heh, yeah I totally found the wrong tom lane on linkedin In fairness, I didn't find the postgres contributors list until I'd gotten a little further down the list.
pictur 5y ago
secret heroes
davidw 5y ago
Thank you, Tom Lane!
Alir3z4 5y ago
Mad love for each of contributor to postgresql whether on this or not, whether backend by organization or not. Thank you very much for such a wonderful database.
uhoh-itsmaciek 5y ago
If anyone wants to keep up with Tom Lane's prolific mailing list contributions without subscribing to the pgsql-hackers firehose, I wrote a Twitter bot that tweets the last sentence (according to some mostly-working regex heuristics) from his e-mails: https://twitter.com/regardstomlane https://twitter.com/regardstomlane Postgres is a fantastic community.
- orf 5y ago
  Linking to the email would be really good.
- framecowbird 5y ago
  That's surprisingly effective. Nice!
ukutaht 5y ago
We decided to create a donation fund to support open-source projects that we depend on last year[1]. We rely heavily on PostgreSQL and so just today I was trying to find the best way to contribute to the development of Postgres. I didn't find much beyond sponsoring official community events[2]. The impression I got was that there are no paid core developers for PostgreSQL, is that correct? If so, what's the best way to support the project financially? 1. https://plausible.io/giving-back https://plausible.io/giving-back 2. https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Did you check the sponsorship page? https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/sponsorship/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/sponsorship/ For that matter, does the donation page really state that donations are only used for community events? That's not what I see there.
- anarazel 5y ago
  > The impression I got was that there are no paid core developers for PostgreSQL, is that correct? There are (I and several of my colleagues, for example) - but they're paid by employers having us work on postgres, rather than a foundation or such. > If so, what's the best way to support the project financially? There unfortunately - personal opinion, not as a core team member - is no good way to fund a "partial" developer for postgres right now. On a smaller scale than employing a dedicated postgres developer, regularly testing the in-development release (and reporting bugs!), doing ad-hoc testing, patch review etc are a bit easier to start with.
- pabs3 5y ago
  The best way to give back to open source in general is probably to donate the time of your developers. Funding isn't used for development in a lot of projects, that is changing somewhat though as people try to monetise open source.
philliphaydon 5y ago
I wish I was smart enough to feature on that list. I’m greatful to everyone who has contributed to postgresql. It’s just so nice to work with. I feel like it’s got a great community behind it. I jumped into their irc channel a few times to ask odd questions and even if they were dumb stupid questions people were quick to help and answer. <3 PostgreSQL

jmarbert 5y ago

Much love to every single one of you!

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Who is Tom Lane?

authorityofnil 5y ago
A single google search resulted in their wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lane_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lane_(computer_scientist)

fraktl 5y ago

rvr_ 5y ago

And there's still people who don't believe in 10x programmers...

jeltz 5y ago
Tom Lane is the best example of a 10x programmer that I have met. Really humble and nice too when you meet him in real life.
fraktl 5y ago
maclockard 5y ago
That's assuming that these people only contribute to PostgreSQL. I'm betting most of the folks listed here make major contributions on other projects or at work. Your comment feels like a bit of unfair judgement, particularly since a lot of those you are implying that are 'only 1x programmers' are effectively donating their time.

richardwhiuk 5y ago

It'd be interesting to see this broken down by organization - i.e. who is funding this development.

notatoad 5y ago
not quite what you're asking for, but mostly to satisfy my own curiosity here's the employers of the top 35, pulled from either the postgresql contributor list or linkedin https://pastebin.com/GYbsEkSu https://pastebin.com/GYbsEkSu https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/ https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
- lfittl 5y ago
  And for fun, I ended up doing the same in parallel for the 2021 data: https://gist.github.com/lfittl/2f112698f908d38f43f4f2aeaaa947f7 https://gist.github.com/lfittl/2f112698f908d38f43f4f2aeaaa94... Note that some of the folks on the list have changed jobs in the last 2 years, so it wouldn't be accurate to attribute all contributions to the current employer (plus some folks contribute on their own time). Also, the EDB / 2ndquadrant acquisition has led to a lot of EDB-attributed contributions, which hopefully will last :) Edit: FWIW, I think your 2020 list has Tom Lane working for Google - thats not accurate (I think you got the wrong one from LinkedIn), as he is still employed by Crunchy Data (since leaving Salesforce in 2015), to my knowledge.
  - samcrawford 5y ago
    I hadn't heard of Tom Lane before. But his prolificness in contributing led me to search for him. And wow. He has quite a history. Co-author or the PNG spec. Major contributor to JPEG's success. Not to mention postgres. At 66 years old and still so actively involved! Very impressive
  - notatoad 5y ago
    Heh, yeah I totally found the wrong tom lane on linkedin In fairness, I didn't find the postgres contributors list until I'd gotten a little further down the list.

pictur 5y ago

secret heroes

davidw 5y ago

Thank you, Tom Lane!

Alir3z4 5y ago

Mad love for each of contributor to postgresql whether on this or not, whether backend by organization or not. Thank you very much for such a wonderful database.

uhoh-itsmaciek 5y ago

If anyone wants to keep up with Tom Lane's prolific mailing list contributions without subscribing to the pgsql-hackers firehose, I wrote a Twitter bot that tweets the last sentence (according to some mostly-working regex heuristics) from his e-mails: https://twitter.com/regardstomlane https://twitter.com/regardstomlane Postgres is a fantastic community.

orf 5y ago
Linking to the email would be really good.
framecowbird 5y ago
That's surprisingly effective. Nice!

ukutaht 5y ago

We decided to create a donation fund to support open-source projects that we depend on last year[1]. We rely heavily on PostgreSQL and so just today I was trying to find the best way to contribute to the development of Postgres. I didn't find much beyond sponsoring official community events[2]. The impression I got was that there are no paid core developers for PostgreSQL, is that correct? If so, what's the best way to support the project financially? 1. https://plausible.io/giving-back https://plausible.io/giving-back 2. https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/

zozbot234 5y ago
Did you check the sponsorship page? https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/sponsorship/ https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/sponsorship/ For that matter, does the donation page really state that donations are only used for community events? That's not what I see there.
anarazel 5y ago
> The impression I got was that there are no paid core developers for PostgreSQL, is that correct? There are (I and several of my colleagues, for example) - but they're paid by employers having us work on postgres, rather than a foundation or such. > If so, what's the best way to support the project financially? There unfortunately - personal opinion, not as a core team member - is no good way to fund a "partial" developer for postgres right now. On a smaller scale than employing a dedicated postgres developer, regularly testing the in-development release (and reporting bugs!), doing ad-hoc testing, patch review etc are a bit easier to start with.
pabs3 5y ago
The best way to give back to open source in general is probably to donate the time of your developers. Funding isn't used for development in a lot of projects, that is changing somewhat though as people try to monetise open source.

philliphaydon 5y ago

I wish I was smart enough to feature on that list. I’m greatful to everyone who has contributed to postgresql. It’s just so nice to work with. I feel like it’s got a great community behind it. I jumped into their irc channel a few times to ask odd questions and even if they were dumb stupid questions people were quick to help and answer. <3 PostgreSQL