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From: tim@ohday.sybase.com (Tim Wood)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.databases
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: comp.database.oracle
Message-ID: <10099@sybase.sybase.com>
Date: 13 Jul 90 18:20:26 GMT
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In article <8468@arctic.nprdc.arpa> carroll@nprdc.navy.mil (Larry Carroll) writes:
>This is a call for discussion for creation of the newsgroup 
>comp.database.oracle.  This newsgroup would cater to the specific
>needs for Oracle developers and users.
>
>Comp.databases is generic in nature, covering most all database 
>packages.  I see a real need for information specific to
>the Oracle community.
>
>-- 
>	Larry Carroll				carroll@nprdc.navy.mil
>	Computer Programmer/Analyst		..ucsd!nprdc!carroll
>	Navy Personnel R & D Center
>	San Diego, CA (USA)

At the risk of being dismissed out of hand as an apologist for a competitor,
I claim that vendor-specific groups (for DBMSs) would be counterproductive
as a whole.  

The database market is changing rapidly.  Vendors are working hard
hard to deliver features, power and services that distinguish their products 
from the others.  Since all these products deal in the common coin
of SQL, they offer (superficially, at least) the promise of application
portablility among them.  This portability assurance will become 
stronger as the ANSI SQL standard is finalized and vendors come into
compliance with it.  

For these reasons, it is important to have a single
forum in which users of the many database products can discuss their 
applications needs, solicit advice, discuss theory and its applications
in real products, and learn what database users at large are doing.

Users with a permanent commitment to a particular product can filter
the discussions with the news reader tools to select only those articles
which address the product they use.  Posters to comp.databases can aid
this selection process by naming in the subject field the vendors or products 
(if any) they discuss in their articles.  (Generally, posters seem to
do this already.)  

Vendor-specific newsgroups would create more work for those interested
in comparatively evaluating products.  Since the discussions would be
segregated by vendor, it would be much harder to conduct a discussion
of the trade-offs among products.  Current users, too, would be disadvantaged.
They might not hear of new concepts they could use (or emulate pending
a product enhancement) in their applications because discussion of the 
concept originated in "that other vendor's newsgroup."

The database market today is too competitive and product developments too
tightly coupled (in terms of their implications for other products) to make 
vendor-specific newsgroups worthwhile.
IMHO,
-TW
---

Sybase, Inc. / 6475 Christie Ave. / Emeryville, CA / 94608	  415-596-3500
tim@sybase.com          {pacbell,pyramid,sun,{uunet,ucbvax}!mtxinu}!sybase!tim
		This message is solely my personal opinion.
		It is not a representation of Sybase, Inc.  Ohday.