Josh Berkus

Short biography

Josh Berkus has been involved with open source since 1998 and databases since 1994. He's currently on the PostgreSQL Project Core Team, and is involved with Software in the Public Interest, the Open Source Initiative, JasperSoft, OSCON, and multiple open source projects. His database experience includes PostgreSQL, Greenplum, Oracle, SQLite, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

Free Software and the Future of Database Technology

After a decade of stagnation, the database world is changing rapidly. Not only have free SQL databases emerged to challenge Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, but the database market is proliferating into numerous specialized databases, including distributed, memory, column-store, streaming, clustered, embedded, and document-based. Most of this burst of innovation is free software.

Josh Berkus, based on his long experience of the database market, will discuss what these trends mean for businesses which innovate on, or simply rely on, databases. He will present a few very brief case studies of businesses which have used their access to free database technology to outpace their competitors.