Xaprb

It’s notoriously hard to measure the usage of open-source software. Software that’s open-source or free can be redistributed far and wide, so the original creators have no idea how many times it’s installed, deployed, or distributed. As a proxy, we often use downloads, but that’s woefully inadequate.

I’ve recently begun trying to figure out how many job openings are mentioning various open-source projects. I think that this might be a better metric because it’s driven by the end result (usage), rather than intermediate processes (downloads, etc). I think that it’s likely that usage and demand for skilled people is somewhat realistically related.

To be more concrete, I’ve been watching RSS feeds from job posting aggregators for several alternative versions of MySQL: Percona Server, MariaDB, and Drizzle. It appears that Percona Server is by far the most in-demand in terms of job skills. (I haven’t seen a job posting for the others at all, so far.)

On the other hand, my sample is skewed; I think Percona Server is better known in America, but MariaDB might be more visible in Europe. And I’m not sure that the sample data set is large enough to be statistically significant. Percona Server jobs are utterly dwarfed by MySQL jobs.

There are other flaws in my method: some software doesn’t really need as much manpower to run as others. I would say that given an equal number of WordPress and Drupal websites, more of the Drupal websites are going to be trying to hire experts to manage their sites. So nothing is apples to apples.

What do you think about this metric and its merits or drawbacks? Is there a better way to figure out how much adoption a project really has?

O’Reilly’s 2011 edition of the MySQL conference has an expanded agenda, with good representation from Postgres, CouchDB, MongoDB, and others. Take a look at the full schedule listing, which is being filled out as talks are approved and the speakers verify that they’ll give the session.

I am certainly looking forward to this year’s event. A tremendous amount of progress has landed in GA versions of open-source databases this year. To name just a couple, there’s a new version of Postgres (9.0) with built-in replication and many more improvements; there’s MySQL 5.5 GA; there’s the HandlerSocket NoSQL interface to MySQL; Drizzle has a beta release; and the list goes on. I believe that this conference will have balanced and representative coverage of what’s really important to users. It isn’t dominated by any vendor this year; O’Reilly is running the conference independently, and the committee members represent a broad spectrum of databases themselves.

In short, I am happier than I’ve ever been about this great and unique conference. It’s definitely going to be the best year so far. Thank you O’Reilly for holding it, and thank you to all the great speakers, and thanks to all the companies who sponsor the event.

A now-famous quote that I probably don’t need to attribute: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Where is Drizzle in this lifecycle? I’ve been hearing and reading some comments to the tune of “those Drizzle guys think it’s easy to rip MySQL stuff out and start over, wait till they see how hard it’s going to get when the real world sinks in.” Maybe, maybe. But maybe not, too. Maybe not.

I’ve seen more than one software project that was belittled as “never gonna amount to anything, save your time” and went on to do quite well. Never underestimate the power of a handful of passionate and talented people. I personally feel that Drizzle has a bright future.