“Long before the Open Source Software media frenzy, back
when the big Unix-on-PC thing was Minix, a project was started to
experiment with relational database functionality. As the market
for databases on Unix grew, PostgreSQL (then called Postgres and
later Postgres 95) quietly churned along, adding functionality in
areas of interest to its core users – the graduate student
set. This hurt Postgres in the marketplace (if such a term as
‘marketplace’ can be applied to free products), where other
database products with more mundane functionality took the
spotlight.”
“With the recent surge in popularity of Linux, and Open Source
projects in general, Postgres received an influx of new developers
and users, with demands for more mainstream functionality. The pace
of development accelerated. I wanted to do this review several
months ago, but several Postgres backers urged me to hold off until
after the 6.5 release. They were right; it was worth the wait.”