Re: Fifth Draft - Press Release

Some suggestions...

> August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group today announced
> the availability of the 8.0 version of the PostgreSQL Object-Relational
> Database Management System. PostgreSQL is the most advanced open source
> database in the world today. The database is icensed under a BSD-style
> license, which allows for cost-effective implementation in any project due
> to its lack of license fees. Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds
> of developers.

... in the world today, and is released under a "BSD-style" license, which allows maximum flexibility for corporate and individual users, with no license fees regardless of how the software is used. This latest release is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building on almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of California at Berkeley.

> PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database a strong
> contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2.

... features that meet or exceed the capabilities of leading commercial database software packages.

> Many companies have
> already recognized the potential of PostgreSQL and have sponsored
> development of the new features, which include:

Several of the new features have been underwritten by a growing number of corporate contributors, who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan. Highlights of PostgreSQL 8.0 include:

> Native Windows Support: PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows
> systems and does not need an emulation layer. This provides a increased
> performance over previous Windows versions and makes PostgreSQL a strong
> upgrade from Microsoft SQL Server.

... does not require any other emulation software. This provides dramatically improved performance and stability over previous versions, and offers a compelling alternative to Microsoft SQL Server for independent software vendors, corporate users, and individual Windows developers.

> Savepoints: Savepoints, also known as nested transactions, allow specific
> parts of a transaction to be aborted without affecting the whole
> transaction. This feature, funded by Fujitsu, is valuable for application
> developers who require error recovery within complex transactions.

... parts of a database transaction to be aborted ...

> Point In Time Recovery: PITR provides the ability to recover data to the
> point of failure or to any time in the past.
>
> Tablespaces: This feature, funded by Fujitsu, allows the database
> administrator to choose which filesystems are used for schemas, tables,
> and indexes. This allows the administrator to place whole databases on
> separate disks to improve performance.

... also funded by Fujitsu ...

> Improved Memory and I/O usage: With this release of PostgreSQL, the
> memory and disk I/O subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers
> more effectively. With this improvement comes an increase in speed and
> performance.

... disk input/output subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers more effectively, yielding significant increases in speed and performance.

> Along with the new features come some new addins:

There are also several new external components which complement the core PostgreSQL database engine:

> - Slony-I is a replication system funded by dot-org domain registry
> Afilias.

- Slony-I, a "master-slave" replication system with cascading and failover capabilities, suitable for data centers and backup sites, and also useful for seamless upgrades from earlier versions of PostgreSQL. Development of Slony-I was funded by Afilias, a leading domain name registry.

> - PostgreSQL has gained a number of stored procedure languages, namely
> PL/PerlNG and PL/PHP which were sponsored by consultancy Command Prompt,
> Inc. as well as PL/Java and the .Net provider Npgsql.

- PostgreSQL has added to its roster of stored procedure languages with PL/PerlNG and PL/PHP (sponsored by consultancy Command Prompt Inc.) and server-side Java through PL/Java. Also new with this release is Npgsql, a data provider for .Net web services.

> - Pgxs provides coding infrastructure to make it easier to deploy
> extension modules. Numerous extensions and applications are available at
> GBorg.postgresql.org and PGFoundry.org
>
> The PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at
> http://www.postgresql.org.