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Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum

FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels is a smashing success. As you remember we have a shared devroom together with the BSD projects. So far it seems we are one of the few devrooms who have a full schedule for both days - some other projects (who particulary got a bigger devroom) only had talks for one day or worse.

Anyway, we had many visitors in our devroom, for some talks the audience even had to use standing places. The talks are scheduled on a rotating basis so most of the time we have one PostgreSQL talk followed by a BSD talk. Some talks even overlap thematically a bit, BSD folks is using PostgreSQL in some tests or projects and vice versa. With the rotating scheme we have many visitors from both groups who not just attend one specific talk but instead stay for one or two extra talks.

We also have a booth which is attracting a lot visitors too. Many people come around, ask questions or tell us how they are using PostgreSQL. Oh, we also have some interesting stuff to give away or to sell. Gabriele brought flyers and pens from italy, Gevik sponsored a carton with anti-stress balls with PG logo on it, Magnus brought live-cds, supplied by Robert and Koen made suitable labels. David had nice new pins in his luggage and one should not forget the blue plush elefants - this time we also have a pair of bigger parent elephants. Always remember, you need two elephants for replication ;-)

Later today we try to auctioneer one of the big elephants, there was some interest in the last days. Actually we don't have any small elephants anymore, most of them (23 out of 25) are already bought by visitors yesterday. Instead of the last talk, which usually does not get many attention by visitors (most people are already heading home at this time), we want to hold our election for the EU group board of directors.

We keep you informed.

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum

As announced back in december, the PostgreSQL Group has a developer room at FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels, together with the BSD team.

Now we have the schedule for the talks, available at bsdwiki.de. The list is very intersting and we have a wide spectrum, starting with news about (of course) PG 8.3, use cases like SNMP, enterprise or high availability and also some interesting talks about the technology behind PostgreSQL: the search page and the infrastructure. But that's not all, check on the webpage what else we have to offer.

The last slot on sunday evening (Election of EU group) is not really a talk: the European PostgreSQL User Group is electing a board of directors. You should read the current proposal for the statutes (along with the mailinglist thread and a discussion page) and also the rules for the election.

So if you are from europe, join the user group and help with your vote ;-)

You can also send your proposals to: election@pgug.de.

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum

Just at FOSDEM, i was talking to a visitor and Susanne was talking to Lenz Grimmer from MySQL, who just visited our booth. The visitor i was talking to asked me, what the difference between both databases is, i pointed behind and told him: She (pointing to Susanne) is from PostgreSQL, he (pointing to Lenz) is from MySQL. Just ask for yourself.

The visitor looked right, looked left, back right and told me with a smile: "Yes, i can see the difference" ;-)

Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum

You are in Brussels, it's evening and you decide to go into the city and find a nice restaurant. You enter the "Chez Leon" and oh surprise, you find half of the FOSDEM people there ;-)