README file needs updates - Mailing list pgsql-docs

The README file is presumably the first thing a new user reads, so it's
not unimportant to present concise and relevant information there.  Here
are the issues I currently have with this file:

| PostgreSQL Data Base Management System (formerly known as Postgres, then
| as Postgres95).

It's not quite that important what it was formerly called.

| This directory contains the development version of 7.2 of the
| PostgreSQL database server.

Is this updated all the time?  The 7.0.2 release still had the
"development" in there.  Do we want to keep the version in there?

| The server is not 100% ANSI SQL compliant, but it gets closer with
| every release.

This is not first-rate information.  The ANSI SQL standard is only one of
many concerns we deal with.

| After you unzip and untar the distribution file, look at file INSTALL
| for the installation notes and file HISTORY for the changes.

How did you read the README file if you didn't unpack the distribution
yet?

| PostgreSQL is not public domain software.  It is copyrighted by the
| University of California but may be used according to the licensing
| terms of the copyright below:
| ...

Duplicates information already in COPYRIGHT.

Here's a stab at something better:

PostgreSQL Database Management System
=====================================

This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL
database management system.

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
(ORDBMS) that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard,
including transactions, foreign keys, subselects, triggers,
user-defined types and functions.  This distribution also contains
several language bindings, including C, C++, Perl, Python, and Tcl,
and drivers for JDBC and ODBC.

Installation instructions are found in the file INSTALL.  This file
also lists supported operating systems and hardware platforms and
contains information regarding any other software packages that are
required to build or run the PostgreSQL system.  Changes over previous
releases are recorded in the file HISTORY.  A comprehensive
documentation set is included in this distribution; it can be read as
described in the installation instructions.

The latest version of this software may be obtained at
ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/.  For more information look at our web
site located at http://www.postgresql.org/.

Copyright and license information is in the file COPYRIGHT.
__END__

Comments?

--
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net