#Postgres Open Source Chestnuts: My Nutty Postgres Analogy.

Having been born and raised partly in East London, it's at this time of the year when the nights draw in and the air cools and signals the winter ahead, I’m left with the memories of Sweet Chestnuts!

You would often see some antiquated stand and an old gentleman selling hot chestnuts from his portable fire. They’d not just warm your heart and hands at this time they’d provide a wholesome and really tasty snack.? The times have changed and so have I, We moved to Surrey in the UK having no idea it was the most wooded county in England. Trees everywhere and some beautiful walks across the Surrey Hills. It didn’t take long before I happened upon many a chestnut tree. I soon found out that there are chestnut trees, and then there are chestnut trees that bear large fruit; often larger and definitely tastier than the ones you will find in the supermarkets. Surrey is an amazing place to find LARGE fresh chestnuts lying on the ground. I was able to map out where some of the best trees are and the best chestnuts would lay, sometimes finding like-minded chestnut worshippers who would participate in this eclectic foraging activity—no doubt nourishing their thirst to recreate the past.

Now every year as summer fades into October and November and the light darkens, the light in my heart glows stronger at the thought of this free feast waiting in the woods at my carefully selected community of trees.

As I pluck with my protective gloves and extended mechanical picker, and tease down with my extended stick with hook amongst this free feast, I ruminate…. ‘To what extent are these tasty morsels really free?”

After all how much time have I spent searching for the best trees, how much time and money spent searching for the gloves that protect from those stinging fine needles protecting the husks of these delicacies, and the litter pickers i've replaced over the years that I use to collect. And then time I spend sourcing these nutrient rich seasonal delights. After all I could just pop to the local supermarket and hope to find a bag of them albeit at a very expensive and less tasty price these days!

In my head they are still free, but the time and effort I go through to collect them definitely isn’t.

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Here comes the nutty analogy! Open source software is also free. True open source software is developed by communities of volunteers who love the concept of free software. And with every release it becomes more competitive against proprietary technology. The $65 billion database market is moving to open source, but it’s not going to be that simple and it’s going to take time. Postgres extension vendors are the often major contributors and sponsors to the most loved and widely used open source database commonly known as Postgres. And can be the experts in providing the ‘pickers’ and the ‘gloves’ and the time to make Postgres work in your organisation and to enable you to scale that transition. The plan is leaving businesses with the freedom and agility to own their previously highly expensive and inflexible database asset, to reduce costs, increase efficiency and better predict future expense.

And this world of Chestnuts needs someone to find them!

Philip Marks - www.synchro-europe.com

#chestnuts #postgres #postgresrecruitment

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