Re: merging advocacy and "overview"

On Thu, Dec 02, 2004 at 04:12:10PM -0500, Robert Treat wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 15:40, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004, Robert Treat wrote:
> >
> > > To me the corporate sponsor page is for the "people behind the scenes"
> > > that make postgresql happen. Like hub and command prompt who offer
> > > hosting/dns services, or 2nd Quadrant that donated Simon to work on
> > > PITR, things you wouldn't know unless we told you. With Varlena, they
> > > provide an ancillary service, much like EMS Hitech or Nusphere or
> > > Dotgeek, that may be of interest to people in the postgresql community,
> > > but they aren't providing community resources. Sure we want to let
> > > people know about these things, but we shouldn't feel beholden to them.
> >
> > Hopefully Elein will clarify, but I don't *think* that General Bits would
> > be classified in the same league as 'EMS' or 'Nusphere' ... if General
> > Bits is a "for free resource", then it has as much value as techdocs, I
> > would think ...
>
> except that techdocs is community run and controlled. if I were to start
> putting up logo's all over the site directing to my personal business I
> bet most people here would have an issue with that.

You would begrudge me a 1.25 inch logo for bothering to write 4 or 5 pages
a week of alternative documentation in hopes of spreading understanding of PostgreSQL
as well as hosting the site? We are not so petty as a group.

I understand that you resent the fact that it is an external site at all,
however, with the traffic that goes on on www I would point out that my site
has not been down other than seasonal maintenance for years. And getting
my column site hosted with postgresql.org is prohibitively difficult and
would take all my energy that would better spent on writing things simply
and being expressive in my own weird style. Do not think I did not
and have not considered moving to postgresql.org if it would have me.
I have considered it and watched how things work and I am content in
my choice (so far) to host on my own site.

>
> if its a 'subscription only service', then I'd lump it in
> > with EMS/Nusphere ...
> >
> > If 'for free', then she is probably a value service to the community ...
> > IMHO ...
> >
>
> OK, but what about dotgeek? They provide a valuable service to the
> community by giving free webhosting with postgresql. Are they a
> community sponsor too ? Heck, by that token the Open Source Technology
> Group ought to be listed as well, since we have software available from
> both sourceforge and freshmeat, along with several important side
> projects. All of these companies drive traffic to their own sites to
> further their own agendas. If they want it to be a community resource,
> take down all their logos and put up some blue elephant heads.

The primary goal of the column is to give back to the PostgreSQL community what
I can do best in the way I can best do it. The benefits in karma and good
will keep me going. I generally put in 8 hours, sometimes 16, sometimes 4,
per week to write what I write. From feedback I get, I understand the form of
the column is a good adjunct to formal documentation. And I only write about PostgreSQL.

The published links do not go to my main site, they go directly to
the column. And my site is not a subscription only service. Do you want
to know the total amount of monetary donations I've received over the
past 2 years I've been publishing?

Contribution is about content not logos. I think I deserve to be
on the corporate sponsor page. Obviously I have not been a fly-by-night
contributor.

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