Re: First stab at 9.0 release announcement

Firstly, on this momentous day in our country¹s history, it¹s worth
mentioning that our Prime Minister has been ousted in a bloodless coup. We
don't get to have the fun that people in OTHER third world countries enjoy:
No troops called out. No radio stations or airports stormed. No bombs, no
buildings destroyed...

We are a boring lot: It¹s un-Australian to get worked up about anything
­ except when the beer is warm.

Kicking out our leader is not news. This time we have our first female Prime
Minister. Hopefully she will do a better job than the last guy.

I've held back making suggestions about the forthcoming launch until I could
get my head around a useful approach to preparing the announcement ­ though
I have been tossing a few ideas around with Josh.

I believe that there is a great opportunity to reach a new audience with the
release of 9.0 if the announcement is well targeted. I think the stars are
in alignment for an upswing of interest in a genuinely open-source database
by people who have clung to other choices till now. Conversely, I fear there
is a real risk that we will miss the boat if we don¹t grasp this
opportunity.

So I want to ask some dumb questions to see if I can flesh out the right
message. I am not concerned about how many new features it has. I¹ll leave
others to sort that out. I am more concerned about making it more
accessible. e.g. I think this quote is kind of cool:

> PostgreSQL is a direct descendent of a project sponsored by the Defense
> Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other groups back in 1986. These
> are the same people who spawned the Internet!

What I want to do is find more interesting pieces just like this to build an
article of 700-1000 words that I want to try to get published in a few
national magazines. Even if it¹s all been said before in one form or another
doesn¹t matter. It¹s time to say it again ­ but with a more accessible
slant. Any suggestions would be a great help.

One thing I¹d like to do is find out what it would take to get people who
are using other databases to switch. Maybe a few hundred words should be
devoted to describing how easy it is to make the switch. Or if it needs more
words, to direct people to a site that deals with it. Another issue, I
suspect, is that many ISPs don¹t support PostgreSQL. If that is the case,
what do we have to do to convince them to offer it?

Any other suggestions?

Regards

Rob Napier