So I’m back from OSCON 2008. As usually it is fun conference to attend. Though I could only come for couple of days (Wed/Thu) as things are too busy here.

Same as previous year I would note the conference is not as much backend and high performance focused as MySQL Conference or even Velocity, though this year there are number of interesting talks for example about Hypertable and lucidDB.

Honestly I could visit less talks than I wanted because I had too many things to do - talk to bunch of people, staff Sphinx .ORG booth (Andrew could not come so that was on me).

Sphinx both turned out particularly interesting - unlike couple of years ago on MySQL Conference there were a lot of people coming by not to ask what Sphinx is but happy users saying thanks for the product. I also had to explain many times why is it so fast - the two orders of magnitude speedups people often experience compared to MySQL build in full text search look too good to be true. I’ve clarified this comes from the design consideration which was built well exactly for the task while full text search in database systems if often afterthought.
At the same time I go a lot of questions about real time index updates - this is the number one feature people are asking about and indeed there is an agreement this is important feature to get. Though it requires a lot of effort to implement right - without sacrificing speed or flexibility.

The MySQL presence on this conference was also very interesting. There was a SUN booth with quite limited MySQL focus (though Monty,Brian,Jay,Colin gathered quite a good crowds). It was also interesting I have seen no MySQL Sales and Marketing guys on this conference just community guys and engineers - Monty, Brian, Steward, Jay, Giuseppe, Colin which is probably good choice. OSCON exhibition had enough Commercial OpenSource and OpenSource crippleware on the show

There also were no big announcements from MySQL on OSCON - the biggest one actually came somewhat outside - the Drizzle - MySQL “community fork” was surely the biggest splash on the conference around MySQL.

Monty’s Maria storage engine was only one which had dedicated session on OSCON (I did session which covered various storage engines) which was fun and very well received.

It was also good the session on MySQL Proxy was presented by Giuseppe and Ronald Bradford - it is good to let bias free independent consultants to speed.

My talk on MySQL Storage Engines was pretty well received and I had interesting crowd attending.

Speaking about MySQL vs PostgreSQL it is worth to say PostgreSQL “owns” OSCON - The PostgreSQL booth had more engineers and large crowd about it, plus EnterpriseDB had very large presence. Interesting enough there is not much of heated discussions going any more - it looks like PostgreeSQL and MySQL are largerly ignoring each other at the conference - PostgreSQL mentions Oracle, DB2 etc as the competitor they are after and MySQL does not put anyone as direct competitor in the talks I’ve heard.

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Entry posted by peter | 3 comments

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怀着激动的心情，我和遍布全球的8万多名英特尔员工及10亿PC用户一道，迎来了英特尔创立40周年这一重要时刻——40年来，从微处理器到移动互联网终端（MID）、从个人电脑到商业应用平台，英特尔与产业链各端的合作伙伴一道，以不懈的创新为全球计算和通信业提供着核心动力。

在英特尔的成长历程中，有一大半时间是与中国相关联。1985年，就在邓小平提出“计算机要从娃娃抓起”的次年，英特尔在北京设立了代表处，从而开启了中国旅程的第一阶段——探路。老实说，在这个时期，与所有初进中国的跨国企业一样，英特尔并不十分了解国内的市场环境和用户需求，也不太清楚该如何建立长期战略，只好遵循当时“流行”的合资模式，摸着石头过河。

记得1994年的时候，我刚刚回国，带着满腔的壮志和一大堆我认为是激动人心的新技术资料去拜访合作伙伴——这难道不是很简单的事吗？我想：我们可以和合作伙伴一道，把这片尚未开发的、充满机遇的沃土变成新兴市场。但很快我便发现事实与我的想象不同。大多数国内PC厂商认为我带来的技术很好很强大，只是太过超前——沟通中，他们更感兴趣的反而是一些“基础”问题，比如英特尔的组织架构、如何建立一个PC生产线等。

我于是得出了两个结论，一是我们需要激发国内用户的需求，才能缔造出一个欣欣向荣的PC市场；二是仅靠英特尔，绝对做不到这一点——我们只有“激活”整个产业生态圈，才能做大市场。我的想法得到了马宏升（Sean Maloney）先生——当时他担任英特尔亚太区总经理——的支持。

所以，从1995年开始，英特尔进入了在华发展的第二个阶段——起跑。我们坚持与国内外的合作伙伴站在一起，根据他们的不同需求，向他们提供力所能及的支持。从研发能力建设，到产品质量管控；从提供“如何测试内存”这种基础问题的答案，到助力伙伴实现团队、流程和制度的完善……在大家的共同努力下，用户需求的魔方终于被转动了。在短短几年里，中国一跃成为全球第二大PC市场——必须强调，在此阶段，中国政府和公众对信息化建设的高度重视、积极扶持也是中国IT产业迅速崛起的一个主因。

大约从2006年起，我们真正步入“中国梦想”的第三个阶梯——共赢。经过多年的耕耘，英特尔的命运已经同中国经济、科技的未来血脉相连、休戚相关。“芯”心相印，与中国IT产业共成长，成为英特尔中国的使命和坚定承诺。从65纳米到45纳米、从双核到多核、从酷睿2到刚刚发布的迅驰2……英特尔秉执创新精神，将最先进的科技、产品和应用体验，源源不断地带到中国，带入寻常百姓家。

飞速演进的信息技术是传统工业升级的助推剂，而工业化水平的不断提高又会反过来带动信息技术的发展——两者彼此促进、互相提升。因此，我们将继续竭尽微薄之力，推动中国信息化与工业化的融合，加速“中国制造”向“中国创造”的升级和转型——我在上一篇博客中曾引述英特尔公司董事会主席贝瑞特博士的观点：当前，中国的“制造业必须要有更高的附加值”、“要有更多的自己的研发能力和知识产权”、“应该进行更多的高端制造业”，因为以密集的低成本劳力为优势的经济形态很容易被其他国家（像印度、越南和许多非洲国家）复制。

要想赋予传统的制造业以更高的科技附加值，一方面需要我们更坚定地以IT高科技来催生新的知识型工业，另一方面也需要更充分地利用全球的最新技术和产业资源，以探求跨越式发展的可行之路。在为英特尔的40岁生日而兴奋的同时，我想说——过去20多年来，英特尔始终与中国共同成长；放眼未来，英特尔将与创新的中国一起“芯”动。

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