> Joshua Kramer writes
> While I like your wording re: who can change the source tree, I think we
> need to step back and ask a philosophical question: what is the
> purpose of
> this press release? To attract new users.
Agreed.
...but remember, many potential users can't easily tell the difference
between the best and the worst.
> Does talk about who
> can commit
> to the source tree create a compelling reason to use PostgreSQL over the
> alternatives? I don't think it does.
I don't think that talking about who can commit to the source tree alone
does either.
...but what people will ask is "how big is the community? how active? is it
owned by one company? is the code not just open source but truly
accessible?". The answers to those questions are important ones, and the
reason I'm on this list, at all.
People are getting savvy to projects declaring they are Open Source and have
"signed up loads of developers". Remember, Cloudbase and Ingres have both
recently gone open source and IBM has made comments about the size of their
developer community in the press release. Many others regularly say "we're
open source now", then go on to explain how what they mean is that they're
expecting loads of people to debug their code for free, like its a done
deal.
Explaining the full details gives users confidence and encourages developers
to join in, all with the knowledge that the rug isn't going to be pulled
away from under them when the copyright owner declares it's not OSS anymore.
> There's also the issue of word
> count; IIRC Josh Berkus said he wanted it around 1000 words, and
> last time
> I counted it had about 1800. I think we should leave out the details
> about who commits, and just say that it's a BSD license (and explain what
> BSD license entails).
>
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> >
> > "Although there are only a dozen or so developers able to
> change the main
> > source tree, there are over one thousand developers world wide
> submitting
> > and reviewing both bug fixes, and enhancements, to the project"
"The PostgreSQL developer community is strong and vibrant, with more than a
dozen active committers, each from a worldwide spread of companies, many of
whom sponsor full-time developers. Active contributions came from more than
1000 individuals for this latest release, based upon detailed statistics."
...along the same lines, just even more upbeat.
Best regards, Simon Riggs