Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Thought provoking piece on NetBSD

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
> In general, I think that people who harp on PostgreSQL's lack of a
> benevolent dictator as an inhibitor to progress are people who are not
> comfortable with democracy and are looking for excuses why company X needs
> to "take over the project for its own good."

I don't recall having seen that idea being pushed for Postgres ... not
seriously anyway.  However, it's certainly true that historically we've
had effectively *no* project leadership, in the sense of anyone setting
feature goals for releases or creating a long-term roadmap.  Would we
be better off if we had done that?  I'm not sure.

It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be
answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who they're
paid by.  So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be more of an
exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management tool.  OTOH it
*could* be useful, if there are any developers out there wondering what
they should work on next.  Are there any ... and would they listen to a
roadmap if they had one, rather than scratching their own itches?

            regards, tom lane