Re: pgFoundry - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Saturday 07 May 2005 16:23, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > What does it mean to "track" the status of something? How would the
> > status change except by discussion? What would be the point of announcing
> > the status of something without allowing people to comment?

> No one said anything about not letting people comment or discuss. What I
> am suggesting is a better public presentation of what the heck is going
> on with PostgreSQL development.

This has been a perennial problem and has existed at least since version
6.1.0, as that's when I first noticed it.  Looking at the website alone
doesn't show the dynamic development that is actually happening, and has
never shown it.  I very nearly passed PostgreSQL by because it looked
unmaintained at the time from looking at the website.  That cannot be said at
this juncture, but at the same time that is not real indication of how
dynamic things really are.

From a sidelines point of view, a developer status summary page would allow
one to follow development without having to read every message in HACKERS.
At this point in my work, I am unable to follow development like I once did
(one reason I stepped down as RPM maintainer) and have no real idea of the
direction for 8.1 as a result.

To put it much more bluntly:  PostgreSQL development (both the process and the
codebase) has one of the steepest learning curves around, steeper even than
Plone, which is acknowledged by many to have an incredibly steep learning
curve.

The only way in my mind to get this dynamism on the website is to make the
website part of the process at some level.  If someone has to go through and
digest for the website (hacker-bits, a la general bits) then that takes away
developer resources (because someone has to be fairly close to the
development process to do that sort of digestion).  Rather, if developers are
using a system that automatically pushes to a web interface (or even uses a
web interface with a cli component) then the status is automatically
generated and the work of updating status is distributed.

> > I think you have a severely flawed idea of how free software development
> > proceeds.

> Then you obviously aren't paying attention. Look at other major OSS
> projects. They have these things in place. Even the Linux kernel has a
> bugzilla (although I am not advocating bugzilla). Not to mention KDE,
> Gnome, Debian..

> These projects also have reasonably defined milestones for particular
> releases and show status of those milestones during the release.

Virtually all OSS projects I am involved with publish a generalized road map
online.   Some are more organized than others.

PostgreSQL has a different culture, this is true.  But it is somewhat of an
intimidating culture for an outsider; once 'inside' (which takes 6 months or
more unless you're another Tom Lane (I  love going back and reading the way
he just 'jumped in' to the project)) this is one of the friendliest
development communities around.  One might say the high bar of entry and the
steep learning curve is partly the reason for that; culture changes take
careful thought to implement, and a web-published development might easily
change the whole culture of the project.

The biggest flamewars I have seen here involve one of the following topics:
1.)    GPL vs BSD
2.)    MySQL
3.)    Multithreaded versus multiprocess.

Most other communities (with the notable exception of the GNUradio community,
which is even more polite than this one, something I thought was not
possible) have many more hot button topics than three.

Like any other management process (sorry, those of you who think OSS means 'no
management' - there is management here) the PostgreSQL process is unique due
to the unique collection of members, and what works for one community won't
necessarily work for another.

Having said that, I'd love an 'at-a-glance' development status showing,
possibly in graphical terms, where each subproject of the PostgreSQL core is
at right now, updated frequently, as I've changed into more of a user role
than a developer role; I can see the forest now, instead of all the RPM
bushes and prairie grass.
--
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu