On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 10:25:49AM -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of good ideas here. I know that I
> spend as much time reviewing other people's patches as I can manage to
> find in my schedule, and I know a lot of people would probably like to
> see me do more of that. I'm sure there are also some people who would
> like to see me do less of that, and at least a few who would like to
> see me die in a fire. Ultimately, this is about money. I have a job
> where I can devote some time to reviewing other people's patches,
> which is great: many people aren't that lucky. Nobody has offered me
> a job where I can spend a higher percentage of my time doing that than
> I spend now. Unless talented reviewers can get such job offers, we
> are going to continue to have trouble making ends meet.
I think this comes down to how many companies care about the health of
the community vs. how many care about getting their specific patches
committed. In some sense this is the free rider problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem
Historically employees who are Postgres community members have been good
at telling employers that they cannot be free riders, but there has been
some diminishment of that as Postgres has figured more prominently in
company success. However, I have also heard that there is increased
concern among employers that the free rider problem is causing
structural problems in the community, which might lend support to free
rider-resisting employees.
-- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
+ Everyone has their own god. +
