Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> By the way, a quick look around shows that there are a few other instances of
> advertisement on PostgreSQL sites.
>
> On www.p.o you have a link to the "server sponsors" and to tinysofa (not sure
> if they are a commercial entity).
>
> archives.p.o and buildfarm.p.o have "hosted by Command Prompt" or some
> variant. (Plus the buildfarm is sure to repeat that on just about every
> page.)
>
> There is some imbalance here. Because these web sites (and the installer) are
> the frontends that are exposed to the user, as opposed to code, letting those
> who create and manage these aspects stick their name there could give them an
> amount of exposure that is not proportional to the amount of contribution to
> the overall project effort. That is further skewed because we have a fairly
> restrictive policy on the extent to which individuals and companies are
> credited in code and release notes.
Yep.
> (Yes, there is a list of project sponsors, but that isn't really easy to find,
> let alone stumble upon. Plus I think it's pretty bogus.)
>
> This is an uneasy peace. If I wanted to, for example, I could stick my name
> or the name of my sponsors on a lot of things in PostgreSQL, because I
> technically host or manage them or have the ability to edit the relevant HTML
> or text files. Or if you want to get easy exposure, I think the easiest way
> is to just start hosting things.
>
> There isn't a good way out of this except requiring that all PostgreSQL things
> be hosted on postgresql.org servers and are not branded or otherwise decorated
> with third party labels, and that everything else is explicitly marked as
> "third party". This could be done, but will this degrade the user experience?
>
> In the meantime, I suggest you follow the revised version of the old saying:
> "If you can't beat them, join them, then beat them." ;-)
Excellent analysis. No question it is imbalanced, as I mentioned in my
"edge" email earlier, and yea, I don't see a good way to balance it
either.
Perhaps the only maxim I can think of is if you want PR, do edge stuff,
which in a way is the opposite message we want to send, but in a way the
edge stuff is easier for external entities to manage.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com
+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
