7.4 Press Release -- Draft #3

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group is pleased to announce the
availability of version 7.4 of the PostgreSQL relational database
management system (RDBMS). This significant release represents the work
of our world wide network of over 100 developers and contributors over
the last 9 months, building on the unparalleled success of our 7.3
release in November 2002.

Significant advances in the new version include:

- A complete redesign of error logging and reporting, providing
developers with an SQL99 compliant mechanism for debugging and
troubleshooting, while at the same time providing users real
time suggestions on how to avoid error conditions in their
applications.

- A redesign of subquery handling with the IN() clause resulting
in considerable speed improvements.

- The implementation of SQL99 compliant Information Schema,
providing developers with database, type, object, and
configuration information in a standards compliant way.

- Statement level triggers, enabling developers and users to define
and customized behavior of the database when data is stored and
manipulated.

- Read only transactions, which bring a greater level of
security to web and enterprise applications by protecting data
from modification.

Other improvements include:
- Performance improvements for data warehousing
- Enhanced implementation of functional indexes
- Addition of polymorphic function arguments and return types
- Significant enhancements to array data types
- Completely overhauled and simplified documentation
- An auto-vacuum feature to help simplify database maintenance

As well as many other features and improvements.

A Timely Release

In making the release, the PostgreSQL Global Development Group had to
balance the large number of features planned for release with a
consistent release cycle, which provides loyal users with enhancements
as quickly as possible. <Insert quote from core developer reinforcing
this>

<Insert quote from user(s) about business critical nature of features
released in this version>

Source for this release is available at:
http://www.postgresql.org/mirrors-ftp.html

More information on PostgreSQL is available in ten languages on the
PostgreSQL Advocacy website:
http://advocacy.postgresql.org/

A complete list of changes in PostgreSQL version 7.3 can be found in the
HISTORY file included with the release, or available on the web at:
<insert url for changelog>

About PostgreSQL:
With more than 16 years of development by hundreds of the world's
most generous and brilliant minds from the open source community,
PostgreSQL is the world's most advanced open source database. With its
long time support of an enterprise level feature set including
transactions, stored procedures, triggers, and subqueries, PostgreSQL is
being used by many of today's most demanding businesses and government
agencies.

Corporations such as BASF, Red Hat, Afilias Limited (supporting the
technical back end of the .org and .info domains), Cisco, Chrysler, and
3Com rely on PostgreSQL's rock solid performance record and open
development process. PostgreSQL is available under a BSD License for
both commercial and non-commercial use.

To find out more about PostgreSQL or to download it, please visit:
http://www.postgresql.org/

--- outstanding issues --
1. Should we drop the "A timely release" paragraph?

2. Need end - user quotes

3. Need a URL for the changelog

4. Still looking for new companies

5. no mention of replication until the discussion finishes on -hackers.

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL