Re: 9.5 Release press coverage

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 5:24 AM, Umair Shahid <umair.shahid@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Robert, for addressing all concerns raised on this forum
> point-by-point. It helps tremendously to gain a better understanding.

Good to hear.

> Your concern here is as valid as the concern I have, I fully support you on
> this. Perhaps, as you have suggested yourself, organizations should not be
> mentioned at all in press releases from the community.

I hope to see more discussion of this point.

> What I did mean was that besides the lengthy explanations (which do help,
> btw!), I would also like to know what efforts EDB is putting in to try and
> not have a repeat of this. It would be helpful, as an example, to know if
> you have communicated this discussion & concerns internally.

First, Renee reads this list regularly.  She may respond to this
thread in due course, but I think our marketing team is not quite used
to the lightning-fast speed at which community business is sometimes
conducted.  Please be assured, however, that whether you see a written
response or not, the message is being received loud and clear in
Bedford.  I don't need to tell them about this thread: they know.  I
often hear about pgsql-advocacy threads critical of EnterpriseDB
through the grapevine before I see them in my own email.

Second, whenever I have concerns, I let the marketing team know about
them.  I know Bruce does as well.  EnterpriseDB is a big enough
company that I'm not aware of every conversation that everyone has
with marketing, but I suspect there are also other people who are in
touch with them as things come up.

Third, marketing reaches out to me from time to time even if I don't
contact them, to solicit my opinions on how the community will likely
react to A, B, or C.  And I always make liaising with them a priority
among my various duties.

> With the explanations you gave, I understand better that this can not be
> guaranteed. I am sure, however, that there are steps that EDB can take to
> try and avoid such stuff. As an example, when talking to journalists, they
> can make sure the interviewee is very clear about PostgreSQL being a
> community effort, rather than an EDB product.

As has already been said, this is standard policy here.

> Now that’s getting personal, but that’s ok. Yes, I used to work at EDB ... 5
> years ago ... when this wasn't a problem. The posturing was very different
> back then, community members on EDB's payroll were constantly and actively
> advising the team on what the community might get offended by and what type
> of statements to avoid. Is that still happening?

Yes.

Also, BTW, it looks to me as though the article has been at least
partially corrected since we've been arguing about this.  It's a real
shame that this thread has been completely derailed into a discussion
of the one article that got it wrong instead of talking about the
original purpose, which was the press coverage this release has
gratifyingly received.

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