Re: 9.5 Release press coverage - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 3:45 PM, Tomas Vondra
<tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>> I think it's one thing when an article does not mention other
>>> companies (which is perfectly understandable and I have no problem
>>> with that) and a completely different thing when it gives the
>>> impression that there are no other companies or that one company is
>>> responsible for the new release. And it has nothing to do with the
>>> number of people in your PR department.
>>
>> No, it doesn't. But Dave already said that he didn't say at any point
>> what that article seems to imply. I don't know what else to say here:
>> you either believe Dave is telling the truth, or you don't.
>
> I do trust Dave, and I have no reason no to trust him. Sorry if that was not
> clear from my response.
>
> Also, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to thoroughly respond to
> everyone in this thread, and for the sincerity of your responses.

Thanks.  I am a bit chagrined about the whole thing because, you know,
I know the people who did this work, and they are not bad people (nor
are they perfect people).  And I think that they have every right to
put out a press release about PostgreSQL 9.5.  More than that, I think
it's good that they did.  It reaches venues that the PostgreSQL
community's PR won't reach and it talks about features that the
community's press release doesn't mention, including *but not limited
to* the ones that us folks here at EnterpriseDB worked hard on.  At
the same time, it *in no way* neglects the features developed by
others, which are all mentioned, yet without in any way claiming that
EnterpriseDB developed them.  It's a good press release.  It shouldn't
have been sent to pgsql-announce, but oh well: the community didn't
have to approve it either.

Now, the article is another story.  That's embarrassing and I wish it
had come out differently.  But we didn't write that.  I think that
should be pretty clear if you compare the press release (which we did
write) to the article (which we didn't).  The press release states in
the first sentence that PostgreSQL 9.5 is "released by the Postgres
community" and mentions "EDB’s contributions to the Postgres
Community".  Why would we have gone to the trouble to write that
carefully and then intentionally put out a sloppy,
sounds-like-we're-hogging-the-glory article on the same day?  Do we
have two different teams here, one made up of thoughtful people who
understand that EDB is not the only contributor to the PostgreSQL
community, and the other of whom is composed of lunkheads?  Really, we
should give those lunkheads a stern talking-to.  But it's not that.
It's just ... we didn't write that article.

Anyway, Tomas, I really appreciate your taking the time to mention
that you appreciate my replies.  I don't want to turn this into a
mutual appreciation society, but, you know, I write these replies (and
my posts to pgsql-hackers) hoping to clarify how I'm thinking about
things, and it's sometimes not very clear whether anything that I've
written has been heard.  Especially on contentious issues, it's nice
to know when something I write helps.  So thanks.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company