How I got started with FerretDB (& why we chose Postgres) with Peter Farkas | Talking Postgres Ep27

Описание: How does a trek to K2 base camp in the Himalayas spark the idea for a database company? In Episode 27 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, guest Peter Farkas—CEO and co-founder of FerretDB—shares the origin story of this open source MongoDB alternative. (Spoiler: “Ferret” wasn’t the original name). We dig into why Postgres was the obvious choice, what “true open source” means to Peter, and how FerretDB is now powered by the open source DocumentDB extension from Microsoft. Plus, why Hungarian Trappist cheese might deserve a footnote in database history.

Chapters:
⏩ 00:00 New Podcast Music
⏩ 06:43 What is FerretDB
⏩ 11:28 Epic trip to Himalayas
⏩ 14:56 Reason we chose Postgres
⏩ 20:44 Open source DocumentDB
⏩ 44:02 Value of open source
⏩ 52:57 Reading and exploring
⏩ 1:12:02 Peter at POSETTE

📜 Full transcript available at:
https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/...

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Links mentioned in this episode:
🔹 GitHub repo for FerretDB: https://github.com/FerretDB/FerretDB
🔹 Blog: FerretDB 2.0GA: Open Source MongoDB alternative, ready for production: https://blog.ferretdb.io/ferretdb-v2-...
🔹 ACM SIGMOD: The Design of Postgres: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/16856....
🔹 Postgres Weekly newsletter Issue 591: https://postgresweekly.com/issues/591
🔹 GitHub repo for Microsoft’s DocumentDB: https://github.com/microsoft/documentdb
🔹 POSETTE 2025 talk by Peter Farkas on Building an Open Standard for Document Databases: https://posetteconf.com/2025/talks/fr...
🔹 OSI Blog: The SSL is Not an Open Source License: https://opensource.org/blog/the-sspl-...
🔹 RedMonk Blog: OSS: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back by Stephen O’Grady: https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2025/05/0...
🔹 Talking Postgres Episode 18: How I got started as a developer & in Postgres with David Rowley:    • How I got started as a developer (& in Pos...  
🔹 OpenDocDB initiative to define an open standard: https://opendocdb.org/
🔹 Wikipedia page about K2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2
🔹 Go Blog: The Go Gopher: https://go.dev/blog/gopher
🔹 xkcd webcomic 927 on Standards: https://xkcd.com/927/
🔹 Wikipedia page on Trappista cheese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappis...
🔹 Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep28 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Jun 18, 2025: https://aka.ms/TalkingPostgres-Ep28-cal

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