David Stokes is a technology evangelist at Percona.
When you look at MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, they each have a vibrant community that reflects its chosen databases. PostgreSQL has a community-driven development process that actively includes its user communities through meetings, mailing lists and online. MySQL is centrally developed by Oracle and its community seems to have diminished as HeatWave has become the main priority. And Mongo’s community has peaked after its licence change flattened enthusiasm for the product.
MySQL could learn from the PostgreSQL community, in that more actively seeking community involvement pays off in more customer buy-in and goodwill.
PostgreSQL is vibrant and unlikely to need to borrow anything from the other two’s communities. MongoDB’s community will continue to dwindle after the licence change issues. Will this affect the long-term success of the company? No. But it will reduce the number of people who are willing to commit to the community.
Another lesson for MySQL to learn from PostgreSQL is the consistent increase in performance between versions. Sometimes it is a single-digit improvement but you don’t trade performance for new features of dubious utility.