Re: Press Release and eRServer - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

I think we should keep the replication part and the press release as is.

My points are:

1) We have translated it to many languages. It's not a good idea to
change something you don't know very close to the release. I would not
change any code either, if I can choose not to.

2) I think replication is important. If you have only one database
server, and you can't replicate, it is quite difficult to make a
reliable system. What if something in the computer is burning? I bet the
computer is shut down. No matter how hot-swapping stuff you have inside.

3) Does it matter, who made it? If it is now open source, does the user
care, if it was originally made by a community or not, if the community
says that they now support it? If it solves the issue that we move the
replication part some paragphs lower, then is it really so important
that we should move it at this time?

4) I think this is the point, where the community really says, that it
is going to support the replication. Earlier on it was just that it was
donated.

5) This is the first release made, that supports replication. The 7.3
supports replication now, but when it was made, it didn't. So we can
say, that replication was considered, when this version was designed.

About the vacuum, well, if you can replicate, then you can propably do
some balancing to make sure, that you always have a server up and
running. For example, you have 3 servers. You take 1 offline and run
vacuum. You join it back, and do the next etc.

Okay, if you have only one database, like in some embedded systems, I
can believe it can be the case, that it slows down sometimes. I think it
can be accepted. I think that this is more of a documentation issue,
than an issue on the press release. When I read a press release, I
usually don't believe half of it. Even less, if it is US originated. If
there is then someone, who has very high load all the time, I think they
will test different solutions, and choose one, the one they think
matches their needs. But they don't choose the system based on a press
release.

I also follow the Linux kernel stuff, and I noticed an article, where
Linus says that he would like companies to test the current test
version. I think that postgresql could have a similar approach. We could
say, that here is the 7.4 beta x. This version supports xxx. Then, if
people say that it has problems running on for example AS/400, we could
say that on the release and fix it later. Linus has the idea, that he
can't test everything, but that when about 99,99% of the users are
happy, he can make a new release. I think we could use release notes in
beta versions  to test the stuff later put in press releases. This way
we would perhaps get some feedback on the issues before the actual release.

I haven't read anything in the advocacy list during the past couple of
weeks that would support the idea of changing the press release. So I
vote that we should keep it as is.

Jussi