Building the next generation of open source contributors – Lessons from 30 years of Postgres | FOSDEM 2026 Main Track

Slides from a conference talk on the FOSDEM 2026 Main Track. Abstract: How do we find and nurture the next generation of open source contributors? Unlike commercial companies, open source projects don’t have legions of recruiters to bring people into the fold—and yet our projects need a steady stream of new contributors. Or should open source projects assume that new contributors (and future committers) will continue to “self-select” onto the project?

The PostgreSQL open source project turns 30 in 2026 (Happy Birthday!). It has evolved from a small project that some referred to as “just a toy”—to today, where Postgres is thriving with an active community and a vast ecosystem of extensions and tooling. The project has clearly done some things right. Postgres is hugely popular, with a healthy upstream open source community plus a host of companies and products built around Postgres itself.

And Postgres is owned by no one company; instead, a multitude of competing interests align as people from different countries and continents roll up their sleeves to get the work done. But what happens when the current generation of Postgres committers step back or retire—where will the next generation of Postgres contributors come from?

Postgres isn’t special in needing new contributors. It just happens to be a 30-year-old project whose successes, experiments, and failures might apply to other communities too. In this talk, we’ll look at how contributors find their way into Postgres: what worked, what didn’t, and where we’re still struggling. And having the conversation at FOSDEM will help us think together about a challenge common to all of us—how successful open source projects need to evolve as they get older.

Transcript

1. Claire Giordano Building the next generation of open source contributors — Lessons from 30 years of Postgres @clairegiordano@hachyderm.io
2. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano.bsky.social Developer Eng Manager PM Marketer Writer Open-source champ Community Lead Podcaster
3. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano.bsky.social Developer Eng Manager PM Marketer Writer Open-source champ Community Lead Podcaster
4. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano.bsky.social Developer Eng Manager PM Marketer Writer Open-source champ Community Lead Podcaster POSETTE: An Event for Postgres PGCA Board
5. Challenge shared by many open source projects How to build the next generation of contributors?
6. Why are we talking about Postgres? 6 1. Relational database 2. Open source 3. Reliable, robust, popular 4. Used by millions 5. Underpins PostGIS 6. Popular with Python devs 7. Fast-growing cloud databases 8. High code quality 9. Amazing community 10. Multi-company & global @clairegiordano
7. Postgres isn’t special in needing new contributors Our successes, experiments, failures just might be useful to others… What’s working Where we’re struggling
8. Inspired by guests on ‘Talking Postgres’ podcast TalkingPostgres.com
10. Happy 30th Birthday to PostgreSQL open source project! 10
11. 11 # maintainers grown over 30 years (5 > 31) N.B. In Postgres, maintainers are called “committers” Source: Tomas Vondra Active Committers
13. How much changed in Postgres 18? ~15 months of changes PG18 35,704 pgsql-hackers mailing list posts 83 First-time Code/Doc authors 36% vs. PG17 279 Code/Doc authors 20% vs. PG17 > 410k lines of code changed, out of ~850k total @ GA 3,986 (55%) files changed 3,043 total commits @clairegiordano
14. 14 @clairegiordano # contributors 300 200 100 0 Total contributors Significant contributors Major contributors Committers Core team 7 31 59 124 400 How many people contributed to PG in 2025? more than 367+
15. Postgres contributor community is global 31 committers from 11 countries, as of Sep 2025 Alexander Korotkov Lithuania Álvaro Herrera Germany Amit Kapila India Andrew Dunstan USA Andres Freund USA Magnus Hagander Sweden Daniel Gustafsson Sweden David Rowley New Zealand Dean Rasheed UK Heikki Linnakangas Finland John Naylor Thailand Richard Guo Japan Masahiko Sawada USA Michaël Paquier Japan Noah Misch USA Nathan Bossart USA Jeff Davis USA Peter Geoghegan USA Robert Haas USA Tatsuo Ishii Japan Fujii Masao Japan Etsuro Fujita Japan Amit Langote Japan Thomas Munro New Zealand Tom Lane USA Peter Eisentraut Germany Melanie Plageman USA Bruce Momjian USA Tomas Vondra Czech Republic Jacob Champion USA Joe Conway USA
16. Full-time 16 Who are these contributors to Postgres? @clairegiordano Part-time Hobbyists Drive-by contributors (I don’t know any, but believe they exist)
17. How do people get involved in Postgres? First Get Interested •Drawn to success of PG •Scratch an itch •Curious, or bored •Want to work on PG •Hired to work on PG @clairegiordano
18. How do people get involved in Postgres? First Get Interested “Activated” • Drawn to success of PG • Scratch an itch • Curious, or bored • Want to work on PG • Hired to work on PG @clairegiordano •Lurk on Mailing Lists •Email on Lists •Patch review •Attend workshops •Attend conferences •Attend PGConf.dev •PG Hacking Discord •Mentorship program
19. How do people get involved in Postgres? • Lurk on Mailing Lists • Email on Lists • Patch review • Attend workshops • Attend conferences • Attend PGConf.dev • PG Hacking Discord • Mentorship program First Get Interested “Activated” Advancing • Drawn to success of PG • Scratch an itch • Curious, or bored • Want to work on PG • Hired to work on PG @clairegiordano •Commits (code/docs) •Patch Review •Email on Lists •Talks/Blogs/Share •Recognized contributor
20. How do people get involved in Postgres? • Lurk on Mailing Lists • Email on Lists • Patch review • Attend workshops • Attend conferences • Attend PGConf.dev • PG Hacking Discord • Mentorship program • Commits (code/docs) • Patch Review • Email on Lists • Talks/Blogs/Share • Recognized contributor •Major contributor •Mentor/Teach •Community work •Advocacy •Committer First Get Interested “Activated” Advancing Long Game • Drawn to success of PG • Scratch an itch • Curious, or bored • Want to work on PG • Hired to work on PG @clairegiordano
21. How do people get involved in Postgres? • Lurk on Mailing Lists • Email on Lists • Patch review • Attend workshops • Attend conferences • Attend PGConf.dev • PG Hacking Discord • Mentorship program • Commits (code/docs) • Patch Review • Email on Lists • Talks/Blogs/Share • Recognized contributor • Major contributor • Mentor/Teach • Community work • Advocacy • Committer First Get Interested “Activated” Advancing • Drawn to success of PG • Scratch an itch • Curious, or bored • Want to work on PG • Hired to work on PG @clairegiordano Long Game
22. “Every contributor is selfish in their own unique way” …with homage to Leo Tolstoy & Anna Karenina 22
23. MySQL meltdown led to Postgres “We used MySQL. And there was a particular moment where we got some coverage, our website was mentioned on some US TV or radio program. We got a lot of hits—and our system completely melted down.” —Thomas Munro, Ep04 of Talking Postgres
24. Paternity leave & a baby that sleeps “I was on paternity leave with my second child and she was a good sleeper. That was a very easy time, but I had a couple of months of feeding the baby & then watching her sleep. I had a lot of spare time on my hands! So I started to look around for open source projects to work on.” —Heikki Linnakangas, Ep08 of Talking Postgres
25. Getting nudged by a professor “The professor who was teaching it pulled me aside and said, you really ought to go apply to be a research assistant in the department because you're good at this. And so I said, OK, because I needed a part- time job and that sounded way better than flipping burgers.” —Tom Lane, Ep20 of Talking Postgres
26. “ 26 What’s it like to be a New (& Senior) Contributor? Greg Burd The Appeal: Fantastic challenge in C in database programming—plus, somebody was going to pay me to work on it! Emotions: Fun, frustrating, painful, educational, anxiety-ridden, challenging Learnings: As much about learning code as learning personalities of committers: how they communicate & how they come to consensus
28. Shout-out to Tracy Kidder And the notion that software isn’t just logic… It’s a reflection of the people who built it. 28
29. • Human Ecosystem • Community • Trust • Culture • Dev Workflows • Tooling • Decision-making • Governance • Economics • Funding • Avoiding burnout @clairegiordano THE MACHINE THE FUEL THE SOUL Look at Postgres thru 3 different lenses
30. Had to cherry pick topics >> What’s working >> Where we’re still struggling
31. • Human Ecosystem • Community • Trust • Culture • Dev Workflows • Tooling • Decision-making • Governance • Economics • Funding • Avoiding burnout @clairegiordano THE MACHINE THE FUEL THE SOUL Chapter 1: The Soul
32. Welcoming Community Soul Working Source: Boriss Mejías & PGDay Lowlands team Open to new people, new ideas Places to build TRUST: • Meetups • Conferences
33. Why Is Programming Fun? Source: Bruce Momjian, “Building Open Source Teams”, FOSDEM 2023 Community devroom • Joy of making things • Pleasure of making useful things • Fascination of a complex puzzle • Joy of learning • Delight of working with a tractable medium Soul Working Joy of Working on Postgres “Postgres is so big and has so many different subsystems, there’s bound to be something you want to work on” —Nazir Bilal Yavuz
34. High-touch 1-on-1 Mentoring Soul Working POSTGRESQL
35. Experiment- ing with Annual Development Conference PGConf.dev, now in its 3rd year, annually in Canada Soul Working Source: Original photo credit to Claire Giordano. Photo of PGConf.dev 2025 organizers taken in Montréal Canada.
36. Recognizing Sustained Contribution Rewarding & recognizing good work Soul Working Source: postgresql.org/community/ contributors
37. Not enough future committers in pipeline It takes years to become “committer grade” Soul Struggling
38. Do we accidentally overlook people for promotion? Soul Struggling
39. Is there a DESERT in the middle? Are we giving major contributors the mentoring & attention they need? Soul Struggling
40. STRUGGLING WORKING • Not enough committers in pipeline • Overlooking people for promotion? • Desert in the middle? • Welcoming Community • Joy of working on Postgres • High-touch 1-on-1 mentoring • Experimenting @ PGConf.dev • Recognizing sustained contribution @clairegiordano • Human Ecosystem • Community • Trust • Culture THE SOUL
41. • Human Ecosystem • Community • Trust • Culture • Dev Workflows • Tooling • Decision-making • Governance • Economics • Funding • Avoiding burnout @clairegiordano THE MACHINE THE FUEL THE SOUL Chapter 2: The Machine
42. Machine Working Rhythym of Dev Lifecycle Commitfests 5x/year Annual releases Quarterly patch releases Predictability
43. Machine Working Invisible benefits of Patch Review
44. Machine Working Dedication & skill of maintainers Big magnet to working on Postgres is the chance to work with these database heroes… Original Photo Credit: Tomas Vondra. Developer meeting @ PGConf.dev in May 2025, Montréal Canada
45. Machine Working Intro to Hacking workshops & Office Hours Original photo credit to Gülcin Yıldırım Jelínek. “Intro to Postgres Hacking” Workshop led by Nazir Bilal Yavuz & Tomas Vondra in Jan 2026
46. Machine Working CI infra has brought light to the darkness Enabling automated dev test No longer have to break Build Farm…
47. Machine Struggling Patch Review Bandwidth— not enough!
48. Machine Struggling Do we need component committers?
49. Machine Struggling Is Mailing List culture a barrier to entry?
50. Machine Working Discord as new channel for hackers PostgreSQL Hacking Up to 1,523 members URL: discord.gg/npcQcsXjKG
51. Machine Struggling Is C programming language a barrier to entry?
52. Machine Struggling Getting Started info: fragmented, incomplete, out-of-date
53. Machine Struggling AI Slop submissions New burden Inhibiting reviews for new people Pernicious risk: will it prevent learning?
54. Shout-out to FOSDEM Main Track talk later today… Daniel Stenberg @ 17:00pm Sunday “AI simultaneously brings us the worst and the best”
55. Found myself wondering (as worked on this talk)
56. STRUGGLING WORKING • Patch Review bandwidth • Component committers? • Are Mailing Lists a barrier? • Is C language a barrier? • Getting Started info fragmented • AI slop submissions • Rhythym of Dev Lifecycle • Invisible benefits of Patch Review • Dedication & skill of Committers • Hacker workshops & Office Hours • CI infra • Discord as new Hackers channel • Dev Workflows • Tooling • Decision-making • Governance THE MACHINE @clairegiordano
57. • Human Ecosystem • Community • Trust • Culture • Dev Workflows • Tooling • Decision-making • Governance • Economics • Funding • Avoiding burnout @clairegiordano THE MACHINE THE FUEL THE SOUL Chapter 3: The Fuel
58. Fuel Working Commercial Gravity of Postgres Postgres keeps on getting more popular “Postgres is hot”
59. Fuel Working Corporate Funding of Contributors ALT TITLE: “Paycheck providers” @clairegiordano
60. Fuel Struggling Committer Paranoia Easy to imagine this is how committers feel when they type: git push Source: Robert Haas of EDB, “Committer Paranoia” talk at PGConf.dev 2025
61. Fuel Struggling Committer Paranoia Reality is more likely this: STRESS! Source: Robert Haas of EDB, “Committer Paranoia” talk at PGConf.dev 2025
62. Fuel Struggling People are going to move on— retire— or burn out
63. STRUGGLING WORKING • Committer paranoia • People will move on, or retire • Commercial Gravity to Postgres • Corporate Funding of contributors @clairegiordano • Economics • Funding • Avoiding burnout THE FUEL
65. Good news: Postgres has already proven we can evolve— and scale @clairegiordano
66. Have to keep evolving Embrace needs of future developers— without compromising needs of the present @clairegiordano
67. Fix patch review throughput Can’t afford to discourage the next generation @clairegiordano
68. TL;dr: Building next gen of Postgres open source contributors Postgres community has already proven we can evolve—and scale Need to address patch review throughput Keep evolving to embrace needs of future devs—without compromising present team @clairegiordano
69. 69 If you want to become a Postgres hacker… Programming skills Knowledge of different subsystems Communication skills Track record of delivery & good decisions Ability to work (and fail) in public Collaboration skills Follow-through do you stick around to fix the mistakes? how do others perceive you? do they trust you? do you listen? are you able to reconsider? @clairegiordano
70. Have you heard about POSETTE: An Event for Postgres—now in its 5th year?  Free & virtual developer event  Organized by PG team @ Microsoft  Jun 16-18, 2026  CFP is open until Sun Feb 1st @ 11:59pm PST PosetteConf.com/2026/cfp
71. Adam Wolk Andres Freund Ashutosh Bapat Boriss Mejías Bruce Momjian Charles Feddersen Daniel Gustafsson Greg Burd Isaac Alves Joe Conway Melanie Plageman Nazir Bilal Yavuz Noah Misch Peter Eisentraut Robert Haas Stephen Walli Thomas Munro Tom Lane Tomas Vondra People to thank for inspiration & reviews All the hackers at Postgres Developer Meeting @ FOSDEM 2026 &
72. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano@hachyderm.io TalkingPostgres.com z PosetteConf.com z linkedin.com/in/claireg @clairegiordano.bsky.social