Re: Release planning

> To fill you in a little, I am the PostgreSQL CORE team member Jan Wieck,
> who burned Afilias payroll hours to implement the ARC buffer replacement
> strategy. The feature has been completed and fully contributed under the
> BSD license way ahead of any possible release schedule. I have had
> several requests for backports, but consider the feature too delicate to
> make such patch available. Don't worry, it's not one of my goals to get
> this into any release, the reason I am personally touched by this is not
> because it affects my checking account in any way.

Yes, but it has been committed, it will be released - the only thing is
that people will have to wait a few more months for it. My point was
exactly what you are saying. It's not worth backporting it because it
is delicate, and it's not worth rushing to meet the demands of a vocal
number of users if it will cost too much time in terms of developer and
release engineering hours.

What I was saying is that we don't need to release stuff right now when
people demand it, if it is really inconvenient for us and we don't have
the manpower.

> What touches me here is the fact that the PostgreSQL Open Source Project
> under the BSD license seems starting to care a lot more about some press
> releases and silly news splashes, than to care about real features
> contributed under the terms and conditions of the BSD license by serious
> members of the Open Source Community.

There's a place for both. I do development for PostgreSQL because it's
fun - however it would make me sad to see PostgreSQL as a whole wither
and die because we get no press, no new users, no good reviews and
everyone just uses MySQL...

Also, it's a good way for people who cannot code to contribute to the
project.

> Which part of the storage manager,
> that Futjitsu uses so that their customers don't need ARC, the
> background writer or vacuum at all, do you think will be contributed any
> time soon?

Well, that's not possible to answer. However, they have already paid
for tablespaces and nested transactions, so who am I to begrudge them
their storage manager?

> Don't get me wrong here, I don't have a problem with someone making
> money out of my 8+ years of contributions to this project. But I do have
> a problem with those efforts getting in my way of contributing.

I'm not quite sure how you've been inhibited from contributing? You've
done a bunch of stuff for 7.5, that is committed and will be in release.
How will press releases and news splashes hinder that?

> Come again about hard-nosing, please.

I'm actually not sure you are disagreeing with me, Jan...

Chris