Re: Press release for 7.3

On Mon, 2002-11-04 at 23:22, Justin Clift wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > My opinion is that the press release should lead with what's *new*
> > about 7.3, and have what's great about PostgreSQL in general at the
> > bottom and on the (linked) Advocacy site. Not everyone agrees with
> > this perspective.
> >
> > Justin?
>
> It's probably the best move for the Community if we do assume that the
> majority of the press contacts that receive the release will indeed not
> know much (if anything) about PostgreSQL.
>
> If we release a Press Release that specifically doesn't have the "intro
> to PostgreSQL" type stuff at the top of it, then a lot of potential new
> contact people will "turn off" at this point.
>
> However, including this stuff means they can forward it on to people
> who've never even heard of PostgreSQL, and/or include it in places which
> would be considered "new markets".
>
> That's what we're trying to achieve after all.
>

After thinking about this some more, I tend to agree with Josh that any
detailed "what is PostgreSQL" stuff should go at the bottom of the press
release. I think Geoff's first paragraph can stand as is, but I would
move the second paragraph to an "About PGDG" section at the end of the
announcment. This is a pretty standard for press releases, and I don't
think it's a turn off to new readers. Essentially we are saying

1. "we're an object relational database and we've got a new release"
2. "here are some of the places we're currently being used in the world"
3. "here's some of the new features we have in this release"
4. "here's how you can get our software"
5. "need more information,this is who we are and how you can learn more"

> Points of consideration with it are:
>
> - We should mention as soon as possible in it that the whole .info and
> soon-to-be .org domain name registries run on PostgreSQL. If we can
> somehow illustrate that all of the proposals for the .org contract were
> either Oracle "High Availability" solutions or PostgreSQL, and that we
> still won, all the better.
>

In a perfect world, this information should have gone out in it's own
press release. It might still be possible to do something like that once
the switch is completed. If you look at the oracle/mysql/etc.. press
releases, a lot of them are of the "oracle helps foo to crank more
widgets" variety. In the future I think we should try to release these
type of announcements when a large company uses postgresql for something
and is willing to get some free publicity about it. However for this
announcement, I think we need to keep focused on the actual release.

>
> - We should mention the licensing terms. Not "we use the BSD license",
> but something that brings meaning from that to the average CIO. "Our
> licensing means you can use PostgreSQL at no cost, in as many projects
> or installations as needed, and don't even have to tell us about it."
>
> Through the feedback form on the Advocacy site about 1/5 of the requests
> are to confirm there are indeed no licensing costs. To me this says its
> a strong "selling point" for some, strong enough that they take a look
> and then confirm it "Just to Make Sure". :)
>

I'm sure this is a direct off shoot of the "mysql is gpl" campaign, when
in fact it's licensed a few different ways depending on what your trying
to do with it.

Robert Treat