Thread: Re: PostgreSQL.Org (was: PostgreSQL Conference Fal l 2007)
> ------- Original Message ------- > From: "Selena Deckelmann" <selenamarie@gmail.com> > To: "Dave Page" <dpage@postgresql.org>, "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>, "Magnus Hagander" <magnus@hagander.net>,"PostgreSQL Advocacy List" <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org> > Sent: 30/08/07, 19:02:35 > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL.Org (was: PostgreSQL Conference Fal l 2007) > > On 8/30/07, Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org> wrote: > > > I am. What I object to is declaring this as a postgresql.org conference when it hasn't been generally agreed in an appropriatecommunity forum (which would be -advocacy imho). Doing so effectively allows *anyone* to organise an event andcall it 'official' - which I believe is definitely not something we want for a whole heap of reasons. > > > > I would like for this to be an 'official' event. > > How do we go about getting 'official' approval? There is no formal process (yet), but I would suggest that general agreement (or lack of disagreement) of this forum (-advocacy)that the organisers are well enough known to be trusted and the proposed event is appropriate. Personally I have no doubts on either point in this instance, given that you and JD are involved. Anyone disagree? Regards, Dave
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Dave Page wrote:
>
>> How do we go about getting 'official' approval?
>
> There is no formal process (yet), but I would suggest that general agreement (or lack of disagreement) of this forum
(-advocacy)that the organisers are well enough known to be trusted and the proposed event is appropriate.
>
> Personally I have no doubts on either point in this instance, given that you and JD are involved.
And Berkus :)
>Anyone disagree?
>
> Regards, Dave
Joshua D. Drake
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On Thursday 30 August 2007 14:22, Dave Page wrote:
> > ------- Original Message -------
> > From: "Selena Deckelmann" <selenamarie@gmail.com>
> > To: "Dave Page" <dpage@postgresql.org>, "Joshua D. Drake"
> > <jd@commandprompt.com>, "Magnus Hagander" <magnus@hagander.net>,
> > "PostgreSQL Advocacy List" <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org> Sent:
> > 30/08/07, 19:02:35
> > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL.Org (was: PostgreSQL Conference
> > Fal l 2007)
> >
> > On 8/30/07, Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org> wrote:
> > > I am. What I object to is declaring this as a postgresql.org conference
> > > when it hasn't been generally agreed in an appropriate community forum
> > > (which would be -advocacy imho). Doing so effectively allows *anyone*
> > > to organise an event and call it 'official' - which I believe is
> > > definitely not something we want for a whole heap of reasons.
> >
> > I would like for this to be an 'official' event.
> >
> > How do we go about getting 'official' approval?
>
> There is no formal process (yet), but I would suggest that general
> agreement (or lack of disagreement) of this forum (-advocacy) that the
> organisers are well enough known to be trusted and the proposed event is
> appropriate.
>
> Personally I have no doubts on either point in this instance, given that
> you and JD are involved. Anyone disagree?
>
Slightly.... Dan was well known in the community and had a well known list of
community members on his organizing committee, yet that was not seen as an
official conference as far as pgdg was concerned, so I'd guess the "official"
answer to her questions would be:
The postgresql project does not run/endorse/promote any specific conference as
an official postgresql conference, despite any claims from promoters to the
contrary. Similar to training and certification, there are many 3rd parties
that offer these services; we recommend you evaluate them on thier own
merits.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
With the only caveat that the Anniversary Summit was official?
On 8/30/07, Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> On Thursday 30 August 2007 14:22, Dave Page wrote:
> > > ------- Original Message -------
> > > From: "Selena Deckelmann" <selenamarie@gmail.com>
> > > To: "Dave Page" <dpage@postgresql.org>, "Joshua D. Drake"
> > > <jd@commandprompt.com>, "Magnus Hagander" <magnus@hagander.net>,
> > > "PostgreSQL Advocacy List" <pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org> Sent:
> > > 30/08/07, 19:02:35
> > > Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] PostgreSQL.Org (was: PostgreSQL Conference
> > > Fal l 2007)
> > >
> > > On 8/30/07, Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org> wrote:
> > > > I am. What I object to is declaring this as a postgresql.org conference
> > > > when it hasn't been generally agreed in an appropriate community forum
> > > > (which would be -advocacy imho). Doing so effectively allows *anyone*
> > > > to organise an event and call it 'official' - which I believe is
> > > > definitely not something we want for a whole heap of reasons.
> > >
> > > I would like for this to be an 'official' event.
> > >
> > > How do we go about getting 'official' approval?
> >
> > There is no formal process (yet), but I would suggest that general
> > agreement (or lack of disagreement) of this forum (-advocacy) that the
> > organisers are well enough known to be trusted and the proposed event is
> > appropriate.
> >
> > Personally I have no doubts on either point in this instance, given that
> > you and JD are involved. Anyone disagree?
> >
>
> Slightly.... Dan was well known in the community and had a well known list of
> community members on his organizing committee, yet that was not seen as an
> official conference as far as pgdg was concerned, so I'd guess the "official"
> answer to her questions would be:
>
> The postgresql project does not run/endorse/promote any specific conference as
> an official postgresql conference, despite any claims from promoters to the
> contrary. Similar to training and certification, there are many 3rd parties
> that offer these services; we recommend you evaluate them on thier own
> merits.
>
> --
> Robert Treat
> Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>
On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 03:19:04PM -0400, Gavin M. Roy wrote:
> With the only caveat that the Anniversary Summit was official?
The AS was, in fact, operated as an official outlet of the
then-nascent fundraising group; but there wasn't (and isn't, AFAICT)
a panel of people to "stamp" any conference as official. That's why
the PGDG is such a nice thing: there's nobody in control of it,
because it's not incorporated.
This _exact_ strength was invoked when Dan was setting up his
conference in Ottawa the following year: the fundraising group didn't
want to do a second round, and everyone argued at the time that, in
the absence of PostgreSQL police, Dan's conference (which was, I'll
point out, well organised and run and generally fine from my point of
view) was a perfectly legitimate operation. I support that approach.
The project has benefited historically from a high tolerance of
community members getting involved and doing things, and this is just
an obvious extension. I don't think we need to get all
PostgreSQL-certified on people. Who would do the certification?
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.
--George Orwell
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>> The postgresql project does not run/endorse/promote any specific conference as
>> an official postgresql conference, despite any claims from promoters to the
>> contrary. Similar to training and certification, there are many 3rd parties
>> that offer these services; we recommend you evaluate them on thier own
>> merits.
I would think that a more appropriate evaluation would be:
Benefit to the community
* Is there a direct and clear benefit to the PostgreSQL community
Not for profit (the PostgreSQL portion itself.)
* Monies collected should be considered donations and run through SPI
or one of the other geographically appropriate non profits
Organization by and for the community
* Is the community actually involved
* Who in the community is involved
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
- --
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/
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On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 12:37:56PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I would think that a more appropriate evaluation would be:
[&c.]
While I think the criteria are good ones, deciding who will decide
strikes me as a rathole down which we do not wish to dig. It's
almost as deep as the naming hole.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Unfortunately reformatting the Internet is a little more painful
than reformatting your hard drive when it gets out of whack.
--Scott Morris
Andrew Sullivan wrote: > This _exact_ strength was invoked when Dan was setting up his > conference in Ottawa the following year And to my knowledge Dan never claimed or bothered about officiality. It was the offical Dan conference. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
Joshua D. Drake wrote: > I would think that a more appropriate evaluation would be: > [many items] Yep, that's the PostgreSQL police that Andrew was alluding to. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
Andrew Sullivan wrote: > I don't think we need to get all > PostgreSQL-certified on people. So you'd be happy for *anyone* to organise an event and advertise it as an official PGDG event? We already know there are unscrupulous training companies out there that are happy to use extremely questionable methods to make a few quid. It's no real stretch for them or other companies to put on a conference (or claim to). > Who would do the certification? I'm not suggesting 'certification'. Just that -advocacy is happy to give any given event an OK to bill themselves as an official conference. It's a transparent forum, and includes a bunch of people who would know immediately that there's not going to be any reason to object in most cases because it's someone we know pitching the event. Regards, Dave
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Dave Page wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> I don't think we need to get all
>> PostgreSQL-certified on people.
>
> So you'd be happy for *anyone* to organise an event and advertise it as
> an official PGDG event? We already know there are unscrupulous training
> companies out there that are happy to use extremely questionable methods
> to make a few quid. It's no real stretch for them or other companies to
> put on a conference (or claim to).
>
>> Who would do the certification?
>
> I'm not suggesting 'certification'. Just that -advocacy is happy to give
> any given event an OK to bill themselves as an official conference. It's
> a transparent forum, and includes a bunch of people who would know
> immediately that there's not going to be any reason to object in most
> cases because it's someone we know pitching the event.
I think this is reasonable "if" we have a reasonable set of guidelines.
Similar to how we set forth the presence for booths.
Which reminds me that needs to get up on the wiki.
Joshua D. Drake
>
> Regards, Dave
>
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> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>
- --
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
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On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 08:53:06AM +0100, Dave Page wrote:
>
> So you'd be happy for *anyone* to organise an event and advertise it as
> an official PGDG event?
I think my point was rather that "official" events do not, AFAICT,
exist. There's nobody to make them official. (This is very similar,
for instance, to "compliance" with RFCs from the IETF: there are no
protocol police, and there's nobody to certify that anyone "complies"
with this or that IETF document.)
Consider that there are already companies claiming to do training in
PostgreSQL who appear to be recommending things that I think are in
fact bad ideas. Are they illegitimate? Hard to know, and even
harder to do anything about.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Users never remark, "Wow, this software may be buggy and hard
to use, but at least there is a lot of code underneath."
--Damien Katz
Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 08:53:06AM +0100, Dave Page wrote: >> So you'd be happy for *anyone* to organise an event and advertise it as >> an official PGDG event? > > I think my point was rather that "official" events do not, AFAICT, > exist. Ah, OK. Well I can live with that, or having -advocacy give the nod, though the former does preclude us from having another event billed like the anniversary summit. /D
On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 03:15:52PM +0100, Dave Page wrote:
> Ah, OK. Well I can live with that, or having -advocacy give the nod,
> though the former does preclude us from having another event billed like
> the anniversary summit.
No, that's my point. In fact, it was a smallish handful of us that
organized the anniversary summit. The funds group didn't have any
real procedures in place yet, so we just worked it out by rough
consensus (which seemed to enail nobody objecting to stuff too
strongly). The community agreed to host the website, too, so that's
where it was hosted. But like everything else in this project,
including the release date of and the features implemented in the
software, the definition of "what is official" turns out to be
nothing more than what gets built and done by contributors.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
--Jane Jacobs
On Aug 31, 2007, at 9:03 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 08:53:06AM +0100, Dave Page wrote: >> >> So you'd be happy for *anyone* to organise an event and advertise >> it as >> an official PGDG event? > > I think my point was rather that "official" events do not, AFAICT, > exist. There's nobody to make them official. (This is very similar, > for instance, to "compliance" with RFCs from the IETF: there are no > protocol police, and there's nobody to certify that anyone "complies" > with this or that IETF document.) > > Consider that there are already companies claiming to do training in > PostgreSQL who appear to be recommending things that I think are in > fact bad ideas. Are they illegitimate? Hard to know, and even > harder to do anything about. And those companies should be made aware of any issues with their training material, though perhaps a public forum isn't the best way to do that. Having been neck-deep in the creation of training material, it's certainly not hard for errors to creep in, or for important things to be left out. -- Decibel!, aka Jim Nasby decibel@decibel.org EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)