Postgres Retrospective by Joseph M. Hellerstein

This article reminisces on the history of the Postgres project, spearheaded by Michael Stonebraker at UC Berkeley from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. It details Stonebraker's design philosophy and the project's technical innovations, including support for abstract data types, active databases, and novel storage and recovery mechanisms. The article highlights Postgres's evolution into the open-source PostgreSQL system, its significant commercial impact through various spin-off companies, and the lessons learned from its success. It also discusses the unexpected benefits of open-sourcing the…