PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software. PostgreSQL is developed by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, consisting of a handful of volunteers employed and supervised by companies such as Red Hat and EnterpriseDB. It implements the majority of the SQL:2008 standard, is ACID-compliant, is fully transactional (including all DDL statements), has extensible data types, operators, index methods, functions, aggregates, procedural languages, and has a large number of extensions written by third parties.
The vast majority of Linux distributions have PostgreSQL available in supplied packages. Mac OS X, starting with Lion, has PostgreSQL server as its standard default database in the server edition, and PostgreSQL client tools in the desktop edition.
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