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European open source community meets at Prato

9 May 2007

Mr Gabriele Bartolini (left) with fellow PostgreSQL conference organisers Mr Andrea Bettarini and Mr Federico Campoli.

International representatives from public and private sectors will gather at the Monash Prato Centre in July to promote the use of an open source database software system that's competing with major players like Microsoft and Oracle.

PostgreSQL (pronounced post-gres-Q-L) is used by Apple, Telstra, Fujitsu and a number of US government departments and universities.

It has the features of traditional commercial database systems, but it's open source -- meaning anyone can download it from the internet and use it for free.

The PostgreSQL conference is being organised by Mr Gabriele Bartolini, who said it is shaping up to be the most important event in the PostgreSQL calendar.

"We've extended the event from being targeted towards the Italian business, government and education sectors to also include the public and private sectors from Europe," he said.

Mr Bartolini said interest in open source software has "grown phenomenally" over the last decade, shadowing the internet's rapid growth.

"The advent of genuine competitors such as Linux and Mozilla to conventional proprietary technologies has brought interest from governments and business," he said.

"The European Community has backed many projects in the area, and this year the Italian government has allocated substantial funding to encourage government, business and university collaboration in the development of open source software."

Director of Monash Prato Dr Annamaria Pagliaro sees deep roots to the open source movement in Italy.

"There's a long tradition here of community-based cooperatives, and the concept of open source software fits naturally with this," she said.

The PostgreSQL conference will be held at Prato on July 6 and 7, 2007. More information can be found by visiting the PGDay website.