Thread: Draft Seven
My apologies Jan - I didn't ignore your comment, I must have overlooked it. See my re-wording below - is that more like what you were expecting? I came up with a good compromise for the "thousands of developers/12 commiters vs. hundreds of developers" discussion, though we still might want to address Chris Browne's points. While the body text does illuminate these points, it might be beneficial to make them painfully obvious: >a) It's not some tiny clique vulnerable to the vagaries of one > organization's business risks; >b) It's not _controlled_ by one organization, either; >c) It is also not some sort of anarchy that lets just anyone check in > their favorite security holes. If I have overlooked anyone else, please let me know. Thanks, --Josh --- August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group today made available version 8 of the PostgreSQL Object-Relational Database Management System, the most advanced open source database in the world. With this new release, professional users have a world-class, scalable, open source database solution that has many of the features provided by commercial products. PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many companies, such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt consultancy, and SRA, who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan, have sponsored development of the new features, which include: Native Windows Support: PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows systems and does not need an emulation layer. This provides dramatically improved performance over previous versions, and offers a compelling alternative to Microsoft SQL Server for independent software vendors, corporate users, and individual Windows developers. Savepoints: Savepoints allow specific parts of a database transaction to be aborted without affecting the whole transaction. This feature is valuable for application developers who require error recovery within complex transactions. Point in Time Recovery: Point in Time Recovery provides a full recovery model that allows data recovery from bare-metal to the point of failure or to a specific point in time, based around automatically archived transaction logs. Tablespaces: This feature allows the database administrator to choose which filesystems are used for schemas, tables, and indexes. This allows the administrator to separate different parts of their data onto separate disks to improve performance. Improved Memory and I/O usage: With this release of PostgreSQL, disk input/output subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers more effectively, yielding more predictable loads and substantially better performance during peak usage times. There are also several new external components which complement the core PostgreSQL database engine: - Slony-I is a a "master-slave" replication system with cascading and failover capabilities. It even lets you replicate between two different versions of PostgreSQL, allowing for simple and painless upgrades. - PostgreSQL has beefed up several areas of its language interoperability including the procedural languages PL/Perl, PL/PHP and PL/Java. - With this version, Postgresql also offers the .Net provider, Npgsql. Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building on almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of California at Berkeley. The PostgreSQL group has over one thousand members, working at different companies all over the world. PostgreSQL is licensed under the BSD license, giving maximum flexibility for both commercial and noncommercial use. This puts PostgreSQL users in full control of how PostgreSQL is deployed in their organizations. The PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at http://www.postgresql.org.
I have a few suggestions (see below mixed into the release). > August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group today made > available version 8 of the PostgreSQL Object-Relational Database > Management System, the most advanced open source database in the world. > With this new release, professional users have a world-class, scalable, All releases are new...might be better just to say 'With this release', perhaps spicing it up a bit with 'groundbreaking'. > open source database solution that has many of the features provided by > commercial products. > > PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the > strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many companies, > such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt consultancy, and SRA, > who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan, have > sponsored development of the new features, which include: The phrasing, 'such as', does not feel quite right. Don't know what I'd replace it with though. > Native Windows Support: PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows > systems and does not need an emulation layer. This provides dramatically I think replace 'and does not need' with 'without', which is more to the point. > improved performance over previous versions, and offers a compelling > alternative to Microsoft SQL Server for independent software vendors, > corporate users, and individual Windows developers. > > Savepoints: Savepoints allow specific parts of a database transaction to > be aborted without affecting the whole transaction. This feature is > valuable for application developers who require error recovery within > complex transactions. > > Point in Time Recovery: Point in Time Recovery provides a full recovery > model that allows data recovery from bare-metal to the point of failure or > to a specific point in time, based around automatically archived > transaction logs. > > Tablespaces: This feature allows the database administrator to choose > which filesystems are used for schemas, tables, and indexes. This allows > the administrator to separate different parts of their data onto separate > disks to improve performance. Very minor nit: the bullet point descriptions for savepoints and PITR began with naming them explicitly, while table spaces is described as 'This Feature'. > Improved Memory and I/O usage: With this release of PostgreSQL, disk > input/output subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers more > effectively, yielding more predictable loads and substantially better > performance during peak usage times. Maybe (just maybe) the term shared buffers is to technical for a press release...I'd consider removing 'to use...effectively'. > There are also several new external components which complement the core > PostgreSQL database engine: > > - Slony-I is a a "master-slave" replication system with cascading and > failover capabilities. It even lets you replicate between two different > versions of PostgreSQL, allowing for simple and painless upgrades. I'd like to see the word 'asynchronous' injected in there somewhere. Also, I think it looks better without the double quotes around master-slave. > - PostgreSQL has beefed up several areas of its language interoperability > including the procedural languages PL/Perl, PL/PHP and PL/Java. > - With this version, Postgresql also offers the .Net provider, Npgsql. > > Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building on > almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of > California at Berkeley. The PostgreSQL group has over one thousand > members, working at different companies all over the world. > > PostgreSQL is licensed under the BSD license, giving maximum flexibility > for both commercial and noncommercial use. This puts PostgreSQL users in > full control of how PostgreSQL is deployed in their organizations. The > PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at http://www.postgresql.org. Merlin
>>- Slony-I is a a "master-slave" replication system with cascading and >>failover capabilities. It even lets you replicate between two > > different > >>versions of PostgreSQL, allowing for simple and painless upgrades. This doesn't sound good: It even lets you replicate between two different versions of PostgreSQL, allowing for simple and painless upgrades. I think just the first sentence is more than enough spice. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > > > I'd like to see the word 'asynchronous' injected in there somewhere. > Also, I think it looks better without the double quotes around > master-slave. > > >>- PostgreSQL has beefed up several areas of its language > > interoperability > >>including the procedural languages PL/Perl, PL/PHP and PL/Java. >>- With this version, Postgresql also offers the .Net provider, Npgsql. >> >>Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building > > on > >>almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of >>California at Berkeley. The PostgreSQL group has over one thousand >>members, working at different companies all over the world. >> >>PostgreSQL is licensed under the BSD license, giving maximum > > flexibility > >>for both commercial and noncommercial use. This puts PostgreSQL users > > in > >>full control of how PostgreSQL is deployed in their organizations. The >>PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at > > http://www.postgresql.org. > > Merlin > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - jd@commandprompt.com - http://www.commandprompt.com Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL
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Hmmm....some changes seem to have crept in over the weekend. DRAFT 7 reads... > PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the > strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many companies, > such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt consultancy, and SRA, > who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan, have > sponsored development of the new features, which include: > DRAFT 6 read.... > In addition to reaching a new milestone in scalability, PostgreSQL 8.0 > demonstrates the unparalleled development ability of open source. > Red Hat, > Fujitsu, Afilias, SRA of Japan, 2nd Quadrant, Command Prompt, and > more than a > dozen other companies as well as over 200 individual developers > contributed > to add more major features to 8.0 than have been seen in any previous > version. These features include: The only effect of this re-write seems to have been to remove my company's name from the list, though Red Hat is now credited. This probably means little to many people, but clearly a lot to me. Could I ask for an explanation as to why? I have heard no objection? If there is, please say so now. I have no problem with such comments being aired. The criteria for inclusion previously was major feature contributors - now it seems to be something else. What is the rationale now? If that is clearly stated, I'll be happy, as long as it isn't specifically crafted to exclude. As an aside, 2nd Quadrant's view would be that PostgreSQL is a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan - as I dare say do about 12-20 other contributors. Best Regards, Simon Riggs
Simon, Josh, > The only effect of this re-write seems to have been to remove my company's > name from the list, though Red Hat is now credited. This probably means > little to many people, but clearly a lot to me. > > Could I ask for an explanation as to why? Actually, I was going to jump on this. People seem to be ignoring my suggested re-writes without comment. Josh, can we get on the same page here? -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Wednesday 08 September 2004 19:22, Simon Riggs wrote:
>
> The criteria for inclusion previously was major feature contributors - now
> it seems to be something else. What is the rationale now? If that is
> clearly stated, I'll be happy, as long as it isn't specifically crafted to
> exclude. As an aside, 2nd Quadrant's view would be that PostgreSQL is a
> strategic part of their overall I.T. plan - as I dare say do about 12-20
> other contributors.
>
Um.. not really commenting on your email, but just curious what 2nd Quadrent
does, and what role PostgreSQL plays in its IT picture. TIA.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
This was not intentional - Josh, let me re-read your comments to see if there was a specific reason I didn't follow them. Simon, I'll adjust this to reflect your company. My apologies. Thanks, --Josh On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: > Simon, Josh, > > > The only effect of this re-write seems to have been to remove my company's > > name from the list, though Red Hat is now credited. This probably means > > little to many people, but clearly a lot to me. > > > > Could I ask for an explanation as to why? > > Actually, I was going to jump on this. People seem to be ignoring my > suggested re-writes without comment. Josh, can we get on the same page > here? > >
Oops! simon@2ndquadrant.com ("Simon Riggs") was seen spray-painting on a wall:
> The only effect of this re-write seems to have been to remove my
> company's name from the list, though Red Hat is now credited. This
> probably means little to many people, but clearly a lot to me.
>
> Could I ask for an explanation as to why?
>
> I have heard no objection? If there is, please say so now. I have no
> problem with such comments being aired.
>
> The criteria for inclusion previously was major feature contributors
> - now it seems to be something else. What is the rationale now? If
> that is clearly stated, I'll be happy, as long as it isn't
> specifically crafted to exclude. As an aside, 2nd Quadrant's view
> would be that PostgreSQL is a strategic part of their overall
> I.T. plan - as I dare say do about 12-20 other contributors.
I don't have all the drafts handy, but it looks to me like 2nd
Quadrant never got mentioned _anywhere_ in the drafts.
Grepping through my relevant mail folder, the only mention I see of
2nd Quadrant as other than part of your email address was when Josh
Berkus was trying to point people to write useful things rather than
squabbling. To wit:
"As a compromise between Peter's perspective and mine/Andrew's, I
think that we should focus on the features but name-drop. So we
need to work in company names at appropriate points, namely Fujitsu,
Afilias, Red Hat, Open Source Development Labs, Command Prompt, 2nd
Quadrant, and SRA-America (am I forgetting someone?). The names
should get across the multi-company involvement without dwelling on
it."
That was kind of "pre-drafts."
Personally, I didn't have "2nd Quadrant" in mind; when thinking of
PITR, it's your name that comes to mind, not the company name.
Perhaps a company has been forgotten, and needs to be added...
--
let name="cbbrowne" and tld="acm.org" in String.concat "@" [name;tld];;
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/rdbms.html
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.
Chris, Josh, > Grepping through my relevant mail folder, the only mention I see of > 2nd Quadrant as other than part of your email address was when Josh > Berkus was trying to point people to write useful things rather than > squabbling. To wit: Hmmm ... I'm beginning to get the feeling that some people did not receive my re-written version of Draft 6. It included 2nd Quadrant, and also a re-written paragraph 2 and 5 that I feel somewhat assertive about. Let me re-post here: ======================================= COMPANIES: having seen both forms, I think that it's better to list the companies in one sentence than attribute each feature. There are probably some more companes we could add; anyone who contributed a major feature or add-on, or sponsors a full-time developer. ? 2nd P: I think this works better if it focuses on our rapid development, which is also important for the image of our project. PostgreSQL Is ... we have standard text for this, I'll post it as soon as our web site !!!! gets fixed. 200 developers: We need to get a firm count from the patches list before going live with this. I'll ask Bruce. ========================================= NY, NY: August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group has released version 8.0 of the PostgreSQL object-relational database management system, maintaining PostgreSQL's position as the most advanced open source database in the world. This release includes many features previously only available in the most expensive proprietary database software, and is expected to dramatically increase the adoption of PostgreSQL by both developers and software vendors. <quote here> In addition to reaching a new milestone in scalability, PostgreSQL 8.0 demonstrates the unparalleled development ability of open source. Red Hat, Fujitsu, Afilias, SRA of Japan, 2nd Quadrant, Command Prompt, and more than a dozen other companies as well as over 200 individual developers contributed to add more major features to 8.0 than have been seen in any previous version. These features include: Native Windows Support: PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows systems and does not need an emulation layer. This provides dramatically improved performance over previous versions, and offers a compelling alternative to proprietary database software for independent software vendors, corporate users, and individual Windows developers. Savepoints: Savepoints allow specific parts of a database transaction to be rolled back without aborting. This has been a long-sought feature by developers of complex business applications. Point In Time Recovery: PITR provides "continuous backup", allowing minimal loss of data even in the event of total hardware failure. Tablespaces: crucial to the administrators of multi-gigabyte data warehousing systems, tablespaces allow the placement of large tables and indexes on their own individual disks or arrays. Improved Memory and I/O: Disk and memory usage have been improved through Adaptive Replacement Cache, the Background Writer, and Lazy Vacuum. This will result in more predictable loads and substantially more even performance during peak usage times. <quote here> In addition to the many features bundled with the release, PostgreSQL has been enhanced by accellerated development of add-ons and optional components over the last year. The Slony-I replication tool and the pgPool connection pooling/brokering utility are both already being used for high-availability clustering. Several stored procedure languages have been added or greatly expanded, including PL/Java, PL/PHP and PL/Perl, and the Npgsql .NET data provider has been enhanced to support our many new Windows users. Of course, there are many more new features. For a full list, see our Release Notes <link> <quote here> <standard "what is postgresql" blurb here> <all trademarks there respective owners, etc.> -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
josh@bitbuckets.com wrote: > PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the > strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many > companies, such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt > consultancy, and SRA, who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of > their overall I.T. plan, have sponsored development of the new > features, which include: The companies should be listed in parallel grammatical form and should be spelled correctly: "such as Fujitsu, Afilias, Red Hat, Command Prompt, and SRA" -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > josh@bitbuckets.com wrote: >> PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the >> strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many >> companies, such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt >> consultancy, and SRA, who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of >> their overall I.T. plan, have sponsored development of the new >> features, which include: > > The companies should be listed in parallel grammatical form and should > be spelled correctly: > > "such as Fujitsu, Afilias, Red Hat, Command Prompt, and SRA" Stupid question here ... but *what* is parallel grammatical form? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > > > josh@bitbuckets.com wrote: > >> PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the > >> strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many > >> companies, such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt > >> consultancy, and SRA, who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of > >> their overall I.T. plan, have sponsored development of the new > >> features, which include: > > > > The companies should be listed in parallel grammatical form and should > > be spelled correctly: > > > > "such as Fujitsu, Afilias, Red Hat, Command Prompt, and SRA" > > Stupid question here ... but *what* is parallel grammatical form? I started to compose the same question, but then googled: http://gsmweb.udallas.edu/iep/immweb/gram_parallel.html -- Dan Langille - http://www.langille.org/ BSDCan - The Technical BSD Conference: http://www.bsdcan.org/
Dan Langille wrote: > > > The companies should be listed in parallel grammatical form and > > > should be spelled correctly: > > > > > > "such as Fujitsu, Afilias, Red Hat, Command Prompt, and SRA" > > > > Stupid question here ... but *what* is parallel grammatical form? > > I started to compose the same question, but then googled: > > http://gsmweb.udallas.edu/iep/immweb/gram_parallel.html OK, it isn't really parallel grammatical form in this case, since they are all noun phrases, but the form in which each company is listed and attributions given for each should be parallel. That is, details such as "the consultancy $foo" or "$foo of Japan" or "$foo, Inc." should either be added in all cases or not at all. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
>Robert Treat > On Wednesday 08 September 2004 19:22, Simon Riggs wrote: > > > > The criteria for inclusion previously was major feature > contributors - now > > it seems to be something else. What is the rationale now? If that is > > clearly stated, I'll be happy, as long as it isn't specifically > crafted to > > exclude. As an aside, 2nd Quadrant's view would be that PostgreSQL is a > > strategic part of their overall I.T. plan - as I dare say do about 12-20 > > other contributors. > > > > Um.. not really commenting on your email, but just curious what > 2nd Quadrent > does, and what role PostgreSQL plays in its IT picture. TIA. > ...you asked, so I answer... 2nd Quadrant is a specialist consulting, resourcing & training company focused squarely on large/growing enterprise computing - of which I am lead Principal Consultant. www.2ndquadrant.com Currently, as far as PostgreSQL goes, we offer the UK's only publicly scheduled PostgreSQL courses, which I teach, as well as custom training and some support. The PostgreSQL side is increasing... On a personal note, I look forward to the expansion of the PostgreSQL side, which will allow me personally to focus on major additional features. Best Regards, Simon Riggs, 2nd Quadrant Ltd