Re: Joint user survey with EnterpriseDB?

On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 17:02 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > I haven't objected to "the whole idea". Surveys are good, and I've
> > proposed a plan to deliver one, that has clear backing.
>
> Yes, and I believe that the survey you propose, when it's delivered,
> will be superior to this one. The fact that we're going to do a better
> survey 1 or 2 months from now is no reason not to do an OK survey now.
>
> It's not like we're limited to doing 1 survey per year for some reason.
>
> > What is so important about this that it should be railroaded through at
> > the last minute? What was wrong with a community project? I've explained
> > a reason why we should wait a month; you've not explained why haste is
> > important.
>
> During the next 2 weeks, PostgreSQL.org will have more traffic than it
> will for the rest of the year. This gives us an opportunity to hear
> from *more* users than we will a month from now.

The discussion was about whether it was OK to send out things via
pgsql-announce, which will have more people, not less people in one
month's time. Multiple surveys would be strange to say the least. The
questions on the current survey have obviously not been well considered,
though some of those questions are useful.

I'm disappointed that you asked for opinions and then when you didn't
like them, asked for them again. As expected, not all people that spoke
the first time spoke again. The subsequent name calling is a great way
to have nobody else join the debate on either side. Who would wish to be
seen as unreasonable?

As Rob says, if you don't have clear standards about what is and is not
acceptable then it will, possibly has, eroded away to nothing. Nobody
has the time for strong and lengthy debates on minor points. But where
do we draw the line? We just continually step backwards in small enough
steps that no single step is worthy of debate.

> However, to allieviate some of your concerns, JD has duplicated the
> survey on postgresql.us so that we can have the survey on a site we control.

Yes, I think the reason for JD's change of heart is clear.

--
Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support