Could PostgreSQL be killed? --Unlikely

We’ve probably all heard by now the campaign to thwart the acquisition of Sun by Oracle; more importantly the handing over of MySQL to Oracle. But have we all forgotten about PostgreSQL? PostgreSQL has been and still is coming along quite nicely with an 8.5 release scheduled for the first quarter of 2010.

Unfortunately, as put forth by MySQL’s creator Monty Widenius, PostrgeSQL is vulnerable as well to the Oracle acquisition—stating that PostrgreSQL can also be killed and catching the PostgreSQL community off guard. In a post to a blog entry, Monty states: “Yes, PostgreSQL can also be killed; To prove the case, think what would happen if someone managed to ensure that the top 20 core PostgreSQL developers could not develop PostgreSQL anymore or if each of these developers would fork their own PostgreSQL project.”

But as Greg Sabino Mullane states, “dragging PostgreSQL into the picture is nothing more than spreading a bunch of FUD. In one of his recent blog postings on the End Point Blog, Greg clearly points out that the PostgreSQL project is quite strong and the likelihood of actually stopping development is highly unlikely with a widely distributed developer base.