Re: Crediting reviewers & bug-reporters in the release notes

Excerpts from Bruce Momjian's message of jue jun 16 18:24:16 -0400 2011:

> I should back up and explain that the reason for having usernames on
> release feature items is not to give credit, but rather to assign blame
> later, in case the features cause problems.

I call BS on this. This PoV is perfect for justifying that sponsoring
companies do not need to get credited, but it's not really the truth.
Credit *is* given by having people listed in the release notes, whether
you explicitely admit it or not. And pissing off contributors by taking
it away is not something to be done lightly.

(If assigning blame and being point of contact is really the truth, why
is there no email address?)

I understand that you don't want to credit sponsoring companies, but I
feel that you can decree that as new policy without pissing off
individual contributors. If we go the route of Greg Smith's suggestion
whereby we assign credit to sponsoring companies in a separate page,
that seems to please everyone without collateral damage.

I am not saying we should credit reviewers next to each item; but
perhaps we can come to some agreement that they are credited elsewhere
(for example, maybe in the same page that credits sponsoring companies,
or a neighbor page).

OTOH I think bug reporters fall in a completely different group than
patch reviewers. I mean, they are generally reporting bugs in existing
releases; they are not participating in the development process.

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Álvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
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