（中英对照）给大家贴篇新翻的。

bitbird

今年三月，Mad Penguin访问了Josh Berkus，PostgreSQL核心组成员（主管
公关），下面是访谈录，我不定期翻译一些，相信大家感兴趣：

下面的 MP 标识 Mad Penguin，Josh Berkus 的缩写用中文拼音看起来有些不
雅，特别是对于泡惯了BBS的，我就用“乔”代替了：

MP: So today is Monday, March the... seventh, thank you, Josh.
We're interviewing Josh Berkus, the marketing lead of the
PostgreSQL project. What other hats to you wear, Josh?

MP：今天是周一，三月。。这个。。这个七号，谢谢你，乔什。我们正在
采访乔什，PostgreSQL 项目的市场领导人。乔，你还有别的啥头衔？


乔：Well, actually my title is Core Team member, I happen to be
sort of the de-facto PR lead as well. But that evolved after I was
elected to the Core Team.

乔：嗯，实际上我的头衔是核心组成员，我碰巧又是 PR （公共关系，公
关）的组领导。不过那是在我当选核心组成员之后才发生的。



MP: Let's talk real briefly about the highlights of PostgreSQL
8.0, the version that was recently released.

MP：让我们简单回顾一下 PostgreSQL 8.0 的成就，也就是刚刚发布的这个
版本。


乔：Well the big new feature that's getting the most press is, of
course, our native Windows port. This is the first version of
PostgreSQL that will run natively on Window with something
comparable to the performance that you can expect on Linux or BSD.
That's what's gotten us all the press, and that's what's gotten
us probably somewhere around like 100,000 new users. Other than
that, there's a number of other features that have filled holes
that our big enterprise users want, including: point in time
recovery, which is otherwise known as continuous backup; nested
transactions or ”Savepoints” in SQL standard terminology; table
spaces, which is a way of making use of more disks; and some
memory and I/O improvements, which were intended primarily to help
large multi-processor machines.

乔：好滴，新闻界报道最多的特性，当然是本机的 Windows 移植了。这是
第一个可以本机运行于 Windows 的 PostgreSQL，并且还保留了一定的可以
和 Linux 或者 BSD 上相比较之性能的版本。这些是我们在所有新闻上都
看得见的东西，并且也是让我们增加了大概十万新用户的东西。除了这些
之外，还有一些其它的特性，填补了那些大型企业用户所需要特性的空白，
包括：即时恢复，也就是常说的连续备份；嵌套事务或者说SQL标准术语
里面的“Savepoint”；表空间，是使用更多磁盘的一种方法；以及一些
内存和I/O改进，主要是为了让大型的多处理器机器上跑得更好。


MP: We were talking earlier about this version representing a
“third hump” for PostgreSQL . How does this version represent a
major milestone for PostgreSQL?

MP：我们早些时候曾经说，这个版本代表着 PostgreSQL 跨越的第三座山
峰，这个版本如何代表着 PostgreSQL 历史上的一个里程碑？

乔: To mention the three humps, I've been involved with a number
of open source projects, and as I see it, there are three humps to
get over before you are a “big project.” The number one is when
you go from being one developer to being multiple developers.
Number two is when you pick up momentum among open source users,
when people you never met before start jumping on mailing lists
and saying, “Hey, I've used the software, is there anything can I
do to help you out.” That gets you a certain distance, and then
when you grow even further in that direction to reach the third
hump, where rather than just individuals, companies start saying
“Hey, you've got a cool project, we use the software, we want to
contribute, we want to be publicly involved with your project,
it's good for our PR, too.”

乔：说起三座大山，我已经干过好几个不同的开源软件项目，而在我看来，
在你能号称“大项目”之前，必须跨越三座大山。第一座是从个开发人员
扩展到多个开发人员。第二座是在你从开源社区的用户中获取动力，在你
发现你从未谋面的用户开始在邮递列表上说：“嘿，哥们儿，我在用你的
软件，我能帮你干点啥么？”这个阶段会推动你继续进步一段时间，然后
如果你继续在这个方向上进步，那么就会碰到第三座大山。这个时候蹦出来
的就不仅仅是个人了，而是一些公司开始说了：“嘿，你们的项目还挺酷
的，我们在用这个软件，我们想公开参加这个软件，而且我们的PR也觉得
这么做挺好。”


That's sort of the third hump, and we [PostgreSQL] have seen that
happen in the last year. Over the last year we have seen not just
SRA, PostgreSQL Inc., and Command Prompt, Credativ and TDMSoft and
a few other companies who have supported us for years, but we've
also picked up Pervasive, a proprietary database vendor that's
going open source; and Fujitsu, the $43 billion Japanese
mega-corporation, and a few others who haven't been public.


这就是所谓的第三座大山，而我们【PostgreSQL】已经在去年看到了它的发
生。去年里，不仅仅是那些常年支持我们的公司，比如 SRA，
PostgreSQL Inc. 和 Command Prompt, Credative 和 TDMSoft 以及其它几
个在活跃，而且还包括 Pervasive，一个正开源的专有数据库提供商；以及
富士通，年营业额430亿美刀的日本大型公司，还有其它几个还没公开的
公司。


MP: Let's talk a bit about Fujitsu. They made a rather stunning
statement of commitment. Can you tell us a bit about it?

MP：让我们聊聊富士通。他们做了相当令人惊讶的承诺。你能谈谈这个吗？

乔: Basically, the head of their open source business
applications division, Mr. Takayuki Nakazawa, said, “We are
committed to helping make PostgreSQL the leading database
management system.” Of course, we at the PostgreSQL project
really appreciated that vote of confidence from a large,
multi-billion dollar corporation, not just because Fujitsu has
been contributing code and features, which they have, for example,
tablespaces, nested transactions, and others.


乔：基本上是这样的，他们的开源业务应用部的头，中泽孝之（Takayuki Nakazawa）
（哪位帮我译成汉语）先生说，“我们承诺将帮助 PostgreSQL 成为领先
的数据库管理系统。”当然，我们作为 PostgreSQL 项目本身，自然是非常
高兴有这样大型的，营业额比yahoo（译注：这句话是我在mailing list上
看过自己添油加醋编的 Wink ，实际上翻译成“上亿营业额的”）还大的公司
的投票支持，因为它表现了对我们的信心，而不仅仅是因为富士通贡献了
一些代码和特性，实际上，富士通贡献了不少代码和特性，比如表空间，
嵌套事务等等。

In addition, one of the battles that you always face as open
source software growing on the commercial market is legitimacy.
Basically, no business that's adopting a new software,
particularly something as vital as a enterprise data center, wants
to be a maverick. They all want to have the confidence that
someone else is using it, and the bigger the corporation that's
endorsing it, the better. So if you have endorsements from
companies like Fujitsu, Pervasive, in addition to the start-ups,
that really gives IT managers the confidence they need to go to
their bosses and say, “Hey, I found something to use for our
project: PostgreSQL.”


另外，在一个开源软件逐渐向商业市场扩展的过程中，经常会碰到的一个
挑战是传统。简单说，用户在选用新软件的时候，特别是为企业的数据中心
这么关键的业务选用软件的时候，没人会愿意当冤大头。他们通常都有
“别人也在用”这样的从众心态，这样他们才觉得安心，并且这样的“别的
用户”越大越好。所以，如果有了来自富士通，Pervasive以及其它一些
新成立的公司的赞助，就会实实在在给公司里的 IT 主管以信心，这样他们
就可以在他们老板面前说：“嗨，我找着了一些给我们的项目使用的东西：
PostgreSQL。”


MP: What do you think was the big draw for Fujitsu for PostgreSQL
8.0?
MP：你认为富士通能从 PostgreSQL 8.0 获得多大的好处？

乔: People in the US are not really familiar with it, but in
Japan, Fujitsu is a major software vendor, if not THE leading
software vendor, but Fujitsu does not themselves have a big
database offering. Yet they do have a lot of very substantial
database tools, so incorporating an open source database into
their repertoire, something they can attach their database tools
to , rather than licensing something from another commercial
company, was a natural move for them. When it comes right down to
it, it is a way for them to compete with IBM and Microsoft.

乔：美国的人们可能并不熟悉富士通，但是在日本，富士通即使不是最大的
软件商，也是主要的软件商之一，但是它没有自己的大型数据库。不过它
倒是有很多非常有用的数据库工具，因此把一种开源数据库集成到他们的
产品线里，这样他们可以附加他们自己的数据库工具，而不是从其它商业
公司获取数据库使用权的做法是他们的自然选择。这样，如果他们完成得
好，那么对他们而言就是掌握了和 IBM、微软等竞争的手段。


MP: Let's talk about the general open source community's reaction
to PostgreSQL 8.0. How long has 8.0 been out, and what are the
download numbers looking like?

MP：让我们聊聊开源社区堆 PostgreSQL 8.0 的普遍反应吧。 8.0 发布多
久了？现在下载的数目大概是多少？


乔: PostgreSQL came out officially on January 17, but it was in
beta 6 months before that. Fixing all of the bugs in the Windows
platform really took us an inordinate amount of time. But since it
came out, we've had about 200,000 downloads from our primary FTP
and BitTorrent sites. That's not the only place you can get
PostgreSQL. That may represent about half of all of our recent new
users, and of course, we get the majority of our users through
major Linux distributions, for which we don't have numbers and for
which we will be seeing adoption for the next two years.

乔：PostgreSQL 正式发布是在一月17号，不过之前它经历了漫长的 6 个月
的beta。修补在 Windows 平台上的所有毛病实在是花了我们前所未有的时
间。不过自从它发布以来，我们在我们的主 FTP 站和 BitTorrent 站上，
已经有将近20万份下载。并且这些地方并非唯一可以获得 PostgreSQL 的
地方。这些下载可能代表了我们最近的新用户中的一半，当然，我们还是
从主要的 Linux 版本中获得我们大多数的用户，这些用户我们没有一个数
量的概念，今后两年我们会看到他们中的用户的使用情况。


So, overall, there has been a huge reaction, and one of the things
that I am encouraged by is that the Windows port has resulted in
over 100,000 downloads and new users, potentially, people who
weren't able to use PostgreSQL before because they didn't have
access to experts on Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris or other
Unix-like operating systems. And that's going to continue to help
grow our community.


所以，总体来说，反应是非常剧烈滴，鼓舞我的一件事情是 Windows 版本
已经导致了十万的下载量和新用户，这些用户都是那些原来因为周围没有
Linux 或者 FreeBSD 或者 Solaris 或者其它类 Unix 系统专家，而不敢
使用 PostgreSQL 的用户。Windows版本会继续帮助增长我们的社区。



MP: What's this launch going to mean for PostgreSQL's star in the
constellation of the overall open source “sky”?

MP：这次发布对于群星璀璨的整个开源“天空”中那颗叫的 PostgreSQL 的
星星有啥意义呢？

乔: I don't think that anyone questions that we're somewhere in
the realm of the “big-name” projects. Certainly both the press
and the companies that are affiliating with the PostgreSQL project
seem to think so. In terms of ratings, your class A projects are
pretty much Linux and Apache. (laughing) And then you have your
second tier, which include a whole host of applications. And we're
either in the second tier or the third tier. Certainly, we have
users into the six figures; we have a couple hundred code
contributors; and at this point, any time I talk to major
corporations about databases, it turns out that somewhere in some
department, if not corporation wide, they are already using
PostgreSQL.


乔：我不认为有人会怀疑我们处在那些“大名鼎鼎”的项目领域中的某个
地方。新闻界和赞助 PostgreSQL 的公司肯定是这么认为的。从曝光率的
角度将，你的 A 类项目很可能是 Linux 和 Apache。（笑）然后你就看到
第二层，这一层包括全部的应用。我们要么在第二层，要么在第三层。当
然，我们有六位数的用户；我们有好几百的代码贡献者；并且，不管什么
时候我和大公司谈数据库，总会发现在部门里的某个地方，哪怕不是整个
公司的范围也好，总会有已经在使用的 PostgreSQL。


MP: What are the major draws that will attract developers to the
project?

MP：是什么吸引开发人员参加这个项目？


乔: A lot of the features are stuff that we've had for a long
time. For example, PostgreSQL is a completely community owned
project. We're not corporate, we don't even have a foundation that
governs the code. We have a foundation for fundraising, but it
does not govern code contributions. So that openness is not only
part of our design, but part of our culture. The idea being that
PostreSQL is there for you to hack. If you need something that
most users don't need, or don't use, but it's special for your
project or your business goal, you can go ahead and hack it. That,
combined with the business license, let's you go ahead and hack
it, and then commercialize it. You can even release under a
commercial license. It's there to be completely, 100% free, and
that's the main thing that attracts people to PostgreSQL.

乔：很多特性是我们一直以来都有的东西。比如，PostgreSQL 是一种完全
由社区拥有的项目。我们不是公司，我们甚至没有控制代码的基金会。我们
由一个用于赞助的基金会，但是并不控制代码的贡献。因此，开放不仅仅是
我们设计的一部分，而且是我们文化的一部分。这里头的观念是
PostgreSQL 就是放在这给你编的。如果你需要某些大多数用户不需要，或
者不使用的东西，而这些东西是你的项目或者你的商业目标所特别需要的，
那么你就可以捋捋袖子编码了。这样的文化与商业版权结合起来，你就可以
写你的代码，然后将之商业化。你甚至可以在商业版权下发布它。这可是
100% 的自由，这就是吸引人们到 PostgreSQL 上来的主要的东西。


And of course, there are other features that compliment the
license. For example, a clear coding style, and a very accessible
code base make it easy to hack. We have a pluggable architecture
that makes it easy to write your own extensions to the database.

当然，还有除了版权之外的其它特性。比如，非常清晰的代码风格，以及
非常容易使用的代码基础，让我们很容易编写扩展。我们有一种可插拔的
结构，让我们可以很容易给数据库写自己的扩展。


There's part of our general architecture design to attract
developers from all [programming] languages, unlike any other
database system that I know of, PostgreSQL supports 11 or 12
different languages for writing stored procedures. So whatever
your chosen programming language is, Perl, PHP, Java, whatever,
you can probably write stored procedures in it. That opens up the
world of database programming to developers who otherwise might
not approach it.

我们的通用结构设计中有一部分吸引了来自所有『编程』语言的开发人员，
和任何我知道的其它数据库系统不同，PostgreSQL 支持 11 到 12 种不同
的语言用来书写存储过程。所以不管你选择哪种编程语言，Perl，PHP，
Java，不管是啥，你可能都可以用它写存储过程。这样就向开发人员打开了
数据库编程的大门，如果不是支持这么多语言，这些开发人员很可能不会
涉足数据库编程。



For current users, we have added stuff to keep them on board. For
example, Christopher Kings-Lynne completely overhauled the backup
and restore stuff to eliminate a lot of the annoying issues with
that. The PL/Perl server-side scripting language that allows you
to write Perl scripts inside the database has been vastly
enhanced, which should be a big attraction for Perl users.

对于现有的用户，我们增加了一些东西，让他们继续乐于使用。比如，
克利斯多夫·钦斯－莱（Christopher Kings-Lynne）完全重写了备份和
恢复的那些软件，消除了备份恢复中的大量让人讨厌的小毛病。PL/Perl
服务器端脚本语言（允许你在数据库里写 Perl 脚本的语言）也经历了一次
大改造，这点也可能对 Perl 用户非常有吸引力。



Other features in this release intended for existing users and
DBAs include vastly expanded logging options and filling in a few
holes in our SQL support for database design in terms of managing
database permissions and database object characteristics.



这个版本里的其它关注于现有用户和 DBA 的特性包括大大扩展了的日志
选项以及填充了几个我们在数据库设计时 SQL 支持的空白，这些方面主要
是和管理数据库权限以及数据库对象的特性相关的。



MP: Where is PostgreSQL heading over the next 12 to 24 months?
MP：在未来 12 到 24 个月里，PostgreSQL 将奔向何方？

乔: We have been releasing a new version about once per year for
the last several years, and I don't see any reason for that
pattern to change. It's a good compromise between how often the
developers would like to release, which is about once every six
months, and how often our users would like us to release, which is
actually more like once very 18 months.

乔：我们最近几年差不多都是一年发布一个新版本，并且我看不出改变这个
习惯的原因。这是在开发人员和用户之间的平衡——通常开发人员希望快速
发布，大概每六个月一次，而用户通常认为应该甚重，实际上更希望18个月
发布一次。

Because we're a completely community-organized project, if you
want to develop something, and have the resources to develop it,
you just jump on the hackers' list, and say “hey, this is
something that I want to develop, and this is how I want to do
it.” People will criticize your ideas, and suggest changes to fit
into PostgreSQL in general. And then you do it! You don't have to
fit some pre-determined marketing goal.

因为我们是完全由社区组织的项目，所以，如果你想开发啥东西，并且自己
有资源开发，那么你只要蹦到黑客列表里说“嘿，兄弟们，我想开发一样
东西，我想这么这么做...”然后人们就会分析你的主意，帮你挑刺，然后
提出一些通常的适合 PostgreSQL 的建议。然后你做就是了！你用不着考虑
什么预先定义好的市场目标。



On the other hand, this also means that version 8.1 doesn't have a
title. There's no specific goal for the release. An example of
what people are working on right now is SQL standard compliant
stored procedures. We have procedures now, but they're not
compliant with the standard syntax. We are also working on the
bit-mapped indexes, which is a big feature for our Oracle users
out there; also, vastly improved improved performance on other
forms of advanced indexing; two-phase commit, which is another big
thing for distributed application users; migrating auto-vacuum,
(a maintenance administrator) into the back end, so that it's no
longer a separate process.


另外一方面，这也意味着 8.1 版本没有头衔。我们对这个版本没有明确的
目标。举个例子，现在人们在干的事情之一是 SQL 标准兼容的存储过程。
我们现在已经有了存储过程，但是它们不兼容标准的语法。我们也在做位图
索引，它对那些 Oracle 用户而言是一个大特性；还有，大大提高其它形式
的高级索引的性能；两阶段提交是另外一个分布应用用户需要的大特性；
把自动清理（一个管理员的维护工作）集成到后端，这样就不再需要一个独
立的进程。

One other question that I would like to answer is replication,
because I get this question all the time: unlike some other
database systems within PostgreSQL, replication is an add-in. It's
a separate application. That isn't an accident. It's done on
purpose.

我想回答的另外一个问题是复制，因为我总是听到这样的问题：和其它数据
库系统不一样的是，对于 PostgreSQL 而言，复制是一个附加项。它是一个
独立的应用。这并非开发事故。我们是有意为之的。

There are several reasons for that. One is that replication is
actually not a single feature. It is a set of four or five
different related implementations, which serve four or five
different needs. As a result, we don't want to bundle one
particular kind of replication with the main database, because
that's not suitable to all users. Our leading replication project,
in terms of popularity, is something called Slony-I, lead by Jan
Wieck, who is also on the Core Team. That has actually been quite
popular as one of the leading master-slave high availability
replication systems of any kind. Jan is currently working on
Slony-II, which will be synchronous multi-master replication for
database server clusters. Based on the pace of his past work, I
would anticipate that it would be available in about a year or so.
But don't look for that information in the main release notes for
PostgreSQL, because it will always be a separate parallel
project.

这么做的原因有好几个。其中之一是复制实际上不是单个特性。它是一个
四到五个不同的，相关的实现之集合，每个实现满足某种不同的需要。结
果是，我们不想在主数据库上绑定某种特定的复制，因为它不可能适合所有
用户。我们现在最好的复制项目（从项目流行程度角度来说）是Slony-I，
由 金·维克（Jan Wieck）领导，他也是核心组成员。该项目实际上非常流
行，几乎是所有主从高可用性复制系统中最好的。金现在正在搞Slony-II，
这个将是用于数据库集群的同步多主机复制软件。根据他以前的工作的速度
来看，我估计一年左右时间可以获得这玩页儿。不过别指望在 PostgreSQL
主板本的发布信息里看到这些信息，因为他们就是一个独立的、平行的项目。


MP: you were the marketing lead for OpenOffice.org, which is a
huge cross-platform project. Now PostgreSQL is a cross-platform
project, too. What did you learn from the OpenOffice.org project
that will be applicable to the PostgreSQL project?

MP：您也是 OpenOffice.org 的市场领导，它也是一个大型跨平台项目。
PostgreSQL 也是一个跨平台的项目。您从 OpenOffice.org 项目有哪些
经验也同样适合 PostgreSQL 项目？

乔: I think that the thing that lots of open source projects have
learned, and that those that haven't should learn, is the simple
fact that millions of people use Windows, and millions of people
use only Windows. If you don't have a port to that platform, you
have denied them access to your project.


乔：我想大多数开源软件已经学习到的，而那些还没学习到的开源软件应该
学习的东西，是一个简单的事实：成百万的人们都使用 Windows，并且有成
百万的用户只用 Windows。如果你在这个平台上没有移植，那么你就拒绝了
这些人参与你的项目。

That's a tough thing for lots of us. I personally do not have any
Windows machines. This is an all-Linux office. But that doesn't
mean I don't recognize that not only do individuals only have a
Windows machine to use, but there are companies that have
standardized, say, on a Windows 2000 server environment, and don't
have a heterogeneous environment available. And there are a lot
of developers who do their work on a notebook running Windows XP,
although their final applications will run on Linux or a Solaris
server. So, as a result, if you really want your open source
project to grow and take off, and reach millions of people, if
it's appropriate for what your project does, then you need to have
a Windows port of your project so that those people can download
it and try it out on the hardware and the operating system that
they already have, regardless of what they may use it on later.

这对我们很多人来说是一个残酷的现实。我本人并没有任何Windows 机器。
这是一个全 Linux 的办公室。但是这不意味着我没有认识到不仅仅有那些
只使用 windows 的个人用户，而且还有很多公司里有标准的，比如说
Windows 2000 的服务器环境，并且他们并没有异构的环境可用。还有就
是，很多开发人员在跑 Windows XP 的笔记本上干活儿——尽管他们的最终
应用将在 Linux 或者 Solaris 服务器上跑。因此，结论就是，如果你真的
希望你的开源项目成长并起飞，并且接触到百万以上的用户——如果这些对
你的项目之目的而言都是合适的，那么你就需要有个 Windows 移植，这样
那些人们才会下载之，并且在他们已经有的操作系统上尝试之，不管他们最
后是否使用它。


MP: Is there anything else you would like to add?

乔: The main thing is that PostgreSQL is a community project. We
always welcome new people. If you're interested in PostgreSQL,
you downloaded it, you tried it, you liked it except for one
thing, then jump on a mailing list and talk to people about it,
because whatever that one thing is, fixing it might be closer than
you think.

MP：您还有什么想补充的话题吗？

乔：最主要的东西是，PostgreSQL 是一个社区项目。我们总是欢迎新的人
们。如果你对 PostgreSQL 感兴趣，你可以下载它，尝试它，如果你觉得
都挺好，但是有件事有些不爽，那么就可以跳到邮递列表里和人们讨论它，
因为不管这事儿是啥，修补它都很有可能比你想得要容易些。