Editing PostgreSQL (section)

== History ==
PostgreSQL evolved from the [[Ingres (database)|Ingres]] project at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1982, the leader of the Ingres team, [[Michael Stonebraker]], left Berkeley to make a proprietary version of Ingres.<ref name="design" /> He returned to Berkeley in 1985, and began a post-Ingres project to address the problems with contemporary database systems that had become increasingly clear during the early 1980s. He won the [[Turing Award]] in 2014 for these and other projects,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/stonebraker_1172121.cfm |title=Michael Stonebraker – A.M. Turing Award Winner |quote=Techniques pioneered in Postgres were widely implemented [..] Stonebraker is the only Turing award winner to have engaged in serial entrepreneurship on anything like this scale, giving him a distinctive perspective on the academic world. |website=amturing.acm.org |language=en |access-date=March 20, 2018}}</ref> and techniques pioneered in them.

The new project, POSTGRES, aimed to add the fewest features needed to completely support [[data type]]s.<ref name="Stonebraker" /> These features included the ability to define types and to fully describe relationships{{snd}} something used widely, but maintained entirely by the user. In POSTGRES, the database understood relationships, and could retrieve information in related tables in a natural way using ''rules''. POSTGRES used many of the ideas of Ingres, but not its code.<ref name="pavel-history" />

Starting in 1986, published papers described the basis of the system, and a prototype version was shown at the 1988 ACM [[SIGMOD]] Conference. The team released version 1 to a small number of users in June 1989, followed by version 2 with a re-written rules system in June 1990. Version 3, released in 1991, again re-wrote the rules system, and added support for multiple storage managers<ref>A Brief History of PostgreSQL [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/history.html "Version 3 appeared in 1991 and added support for multiple storage managers, an improved query executor, and a rewritten rule system."]. ''postgresql.org''. ''The PostgreSQL Global Development Group'', Retrieved on March 18, 2020.</ref> and an improved query engine. By 1993, the number of users began to overwhelm the project with requests for support and features. After releasing version 4.2<ref name="University POSTGRES" /> on June 30, 1994{{snd}} primarily a cleanup{{snd}} the project ended. Berkeley released POSTGRES under an [[MIT License]] variant, which enabled other developers to use the code for any use. At the time, POSTGRES used an Ingres-influenced [[QUEL query languages|POSTQUEL query language]] interpreter, which could be interactively used with a [[console application]] named <kbd>''monitor''</kbd>. <!-- See http://db.cs.berkeley.edu/postgres-v4r2/postgres-setup.ps -->

In 1994, Berkeley graduate students Andrew Yu and Jolly Chen replaced the POSTQUEL query language interpreter with one for the SQL query language, creating Postgres95. The <kbd>''monitor''</kbd> console was also replaced by <kbd>psql</kbd>. Yu and Chen announced the first version (0.01) to [[beta tester]]s on May 5, 1995.<!-- email lists are not citable, however see message 3165 of |url=https://db.cs.berkeley.edu/postgres-v4r2/mail-archive/1995.05.tar.gz |title=Announcement: Postgres95 Beta |author=Andrew K. Yu |date=May 1, 1995 --> Version 1.0 of Postgres95 was announced on September 5, 1995, with a more liberal license that enabled the software to be freely modifiable.<!-- message 3279 of |url=https://db.cs.berkeley.edu/postgres-v4r2/mail-archive/1995.09.tar.gz |title=ANNOUNCEMENT for postgres95 version 1.0 |author=Jolly Chen |date=September 5, 1995 -->

On July 8, 1996, Marc Fournier at Hub.org Networking Services provided the first non-university development server for the open-source development effort.<ref name="birthday" /> With the participation of Bruce Momjian and Vadim B. Mikheev, work began to stabilize the code inherited from Berkeley.

In 1996, the project was renamed to PostgreSQL to reflect its support for SQL. The online presence at the website PostgreSQL.org began on October 22, 1996.<ref name="20th anniversary" /> The first PostgreSQL release formed version 6.0 on January 29, 1997. Since then developers and volunteers around the world have maintained the software as The PostgreSQL Global Development Group.<ref name="contributors" />

The project continues to make releases available under its [[free and open-source software]] PostgreSQL License. Code comes from contributions from proprietary vendors, support companies, and open-source programmers.