Re: [HACKERS] SAP and MySQL ... [and Benchmark]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Robert Treat wrote:

> are people willing to delay releases for marketing purposes? we seem to
> be into a nasty habit of release on holidays which means it has taken us
> a few days to get all of the websites updated and emails sent out. if we
> could get core to support the idea that a release date must get approval
> from the advocacy guys before it can be announced that would be helpful.

First off, all core does for stuff like this is sets the 'estimated
release date' ... look back through the archives, and I dont' think there
has been a release yet that has been "on time", and the dates have always
been pushed back due to discussions on -hackers ... and even as far as the
estimated release date is concerned, the gist of the discussion on -core
is "should we aim for a <enter date here> release?", to which the answers
are either "I have this one thing I'm working on, can we push it back a
bit?", or, if all is in agreement "sounds great, let's put it to -hackers
just to make sure that someone else doesn't have something they need a few
more days for" ...

So, pushing a release back a few days cause the advocacy folks haven't
been able to finish up a release notice is nothing ...

> i think the disconnect here is that in the past all aspects of marketing
> postgresql have been made by the technical guys. now you have a group
> of people who want to change the way that things are done and if the new
> people's decisions are going to override the previous policies that were
> put in place, we need some form acceptance of that and the folks who i
> see giving that acceptance is the core group. The press releases fall
> into this category, since the current standard is that we don't make
> announcements of "point" releases, but the advocacy group is recognizing
> that something could be gained from spreading the word to right right
> target audiences. Should we just go and do it? I guess based on Tom's
> post we should.

I think so too ... but, just curious ... we generally mention something on
-hackers at least a week before we do any point releases ... shouldn't
that be enough time to throw together a press release so that the release
doesn't have to be delayed? same with major releases, there is such a
long, drawn out beta period before that, where features are frozen ...
shouldn't there be enough time in there to make one helluva powerful press
release?