PostgreSQL

History

• PostgreSQL (Postgres or PG) spawned from work on Ingres at University of California in Berkeley (1977 - 1985)

• Next eight years: Postgres transformed into Object Relation databases

• 1994-5: SQL support added
• Project renamed Postgres95

• 1996: Appeal for help from open source community
  • Several new developers inducted into core development team
  • Focus on cleaning & re-structuring code -- almost unreadable after so many years of development
  • Bug fixing a priority

• Increased reliability attracted new users, new developers, more documentation
• Project renamed PostgreSQL to reflect its historical naming and that SQL was supported and developed by the `PostgreSQL Global Development Group'

• Now:
  • Regular development cycle
  • Highly reliable
  • New features constantly added
  • Excellent documentation and mailing list support
  • Commercial support from PostgreSQL Inc, Red Hat and consultants world-wide
  • >Tera-byte installations in production