pgconf.eu finally kicked off

So, finally it started: Magnus kicked off the 10th annual PostgreSQL Conference Europe this morning in Lisbon. With 450 attendees the conference is even bigger this year than it was last year in Warsaw and it will probably be even bigger next year. One can really feel the increasing interest in PostgreSQL in Europe (and probably around the world as well). Even Tom Lane is attending this year.

Conferences are not only about technical content, social events are important as well. You can meet people, have great discussion, enjoy local food and drinks. And that is exactly what we did yesterday evening when the Swiss PostgreSQL community came together for lunch:

Conferences are not only about fun, sometimes you have to work on your queue. Working at conferences on the other side gives you the possibility to chose nice working places:

… and of course you have to work hard on preparing the booth:

But once you’ve done all that you are ready for the conference:

… and then the mess starts: There is such an impressive line up of speakers, where do you go? Not an easy choice and you will obviously miss one or the other session. But hey, that’s the PostgreSQL community: Everybody is open for questions and discussions, just jump in.

One of the benefits of sponsoring is that you get a big thank you when the conference starts and that you can have your logo on the official t-shirt:

And that brings us to the final thoughts of this post: Why are we doing that? The answer is quite simple: Without sponsoring, organizing such a big community event is impossible. As you know PostgreSQL is a pure community project so it depends on the community not only on the technical but also on the financial level. When you make money with community projects you should give something back and sponsoring is one way of doing that.

Finally, we are committed to open source technologies. You can see that e.g. in the events we are organizing, on our blog and events such as this one. Three days of great content, great discussion and fun ahead.