Behind the Postgres 18 major release: An analysis of contributions

Ever wonder what happens during the 15-month development cycle for a new Postgres release? Ever wonder about all of the work that brings each new release to life? Let’s find out. In an open source project like Postgres, recognizing behind-the-scenes volunteer efforts isn’t just nice - it’s necessary to keep the momentum.

This talk shares an analysis of contributions to Postgres in the v18 timeframe. The research is done by Postgres committer Daniel Gustafsson and Claire Giordano - and leverages data from public sources like commit logs, mailing lists, and PostgreSQL.org. You’ll see maps and charts as you learn about the people behind governance, conferences, meetups, infrastructure, and the code.

You’ll leave with an appreciation for the full spectrum of work behind a Postgres release - and ideas about how you can earn one of those coveted Postgres coins.

Pizza is provided, and we also have a user group lending library of books & papers related to Postgres and Databases.

===== Speaker:
Claire Giordano is a PostgreSQL contributor who leads open source community efforts for Postgres at Microsoft - and serves on the Board for the PGCA non-profit that protects the Postgres trademarks. Claire also hosts a monthly podcast called Talking Postgres. Before joining Microsoft via the Citus acquisition, Claire served in leadership roles in engineering, product management, and product marketing at Sun Microsystems, Amazon/A9, and Citus Data. At Sun, she led the engineering team behind Solaris Zones - and spearheaded the open sourcing of the Solaris operating system. Claire earned an Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics & Computer Science from Brown University.