Re: Patch committers

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> I also think the bad economy is making it harder for people/companies to
> devote time to community stuff when paid work is available.
>
I think this explains away more of the recent situation than you're
giving it credit for. When everybody's fat and happy and it's easy to
generate/raise money, it's also easy to throw money toward the
community. When times are tight, giving away work that you might charge
for (or have already charged for) is harder for a company to justify.
It's easy to plan to have someone do community work when you hire them,
only to realize down the line that business has dried up enough that
you're stuck with the choice between them doing that and a job that will
make or break and upcoming payroll. And that's where a lot more
businesses are at right now than at any time in a long while.

After looking for an example of the boom/bust cycle impacting this
community's work that's old enough to be clearer in hindsight, I would
suggest noting that Great Bridge was officially announced in May of 2000
and was gone by the end of 2001. Overlay those dates on top of
http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC after switching "Zoom"
to show 10 years.

--
Greg Smith 2ndQuadrant Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)com www.2ndQuadrant.com