Re: 9.5 Release press coverage

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
>> I'd really like to understand what wording would be found acceptable
>> to the community. I think it's natural for a press release put out by
>
> Specifically "today announced the general availability of PostgreSQL 9.5,
> released by the Postgres community". The subject is actually better and is
> what should've used in that place as well ("EnterpriseDB Announces Improved
> Database Integration, Scalability and Data Analytics Productivity with Newly
> Released PostgreSQL 9.5" -- because that's actually what the announcement is
> about).
>
> But the point is that it's not EnterpriseDB that announces the availability
> of PostgreSQL 9.5 -- that's the PostgreSQL community.

Well, I think that the PostgreSQL community put out an announcement
and EnterpriseDB also put out an announcement and promoted both the
community's announcement and its own. I think other companies or
organizations could also put out their own PR about the release if
they wish. You and Simon seem to be taking the position that the
release announcement from the community must be the only release
announcement, but I'm not sure that's right.

> and
> "To learn about PostgreSQL 9.5, email sales(at)enterprisedb(dot)com"
>
> I'd venture to say that your sales people aren't really the best people to
> talk about PostgreSQL 9.5 :P They are probably the right people to talk
> about EDB's offerings around PostgreSQL 9.5 of course.

Well, perhaps so. But I think people will understand from the nature
of the email address that you should use that email address for
support, services, and complementary products, rather than technical
information. It's not unclear in any real sense.

> Overall I stand by thinking that it's certainly not perfect (nothing ever
> is), but the majority of it is perfectly fine. It just opens and closes on
> the slightly wrong note.

Fair enough. But there's a heck of lot of criticism of EnterpriseDB
on this email thread for something that is not perfect but perhaps
strikes a wrong note someplace. Would any other company that tried to
promote the release have come in for equally tight scrutiny? I bet
somebody will say yes, but I'm not sure I believe it. Dave said in
email number four on this thread that we didn't say what the CBR
article was implied, and that we had asked for a correction. Instead
of accepting that at face value, people continued to demand apologies,
inquire whether we habitually ask for corrections, and challenge good
faith for another ten, twenty, thirty emails. This then got conflated
- IMHO unfairly - with complaints about a press release which, as has
been said many times already, was only approved for pgsql-announce by
accident, and which everybody except maybe Simon seems to agree didn't
really do anything all that bad.

I'm obviously biased about this because I work at EnterpriseDB and
have been doing so for about six years. I know this is not a perfect
company. But I don't see much evidence that it is any less perfect
than any other company in this space, and better than some, and better
than what it has sometimes been in the past. And yet I see more
threads on these mailing lists critical of EnterpriseDB for doing this
thing or that thing than I ever do for any other company. Does the
community have the right to challenge EnterpriseDB when it does
something wrong? Sure. But it seems to me that the scrutiny we get
is delivered with a vigor not directed at any other player. There's a
core team member on this thread who says that (1) he asked
EnterpriseDB for help with PR, (2) he was happy with the help he got,
and (3) he knew what help he was getting and was still happy with it.
And yet, somehow, we're not sure whether perhaps EnterpriseDB ought to
be severely punished in either a court of law or at least the court of
public opinion. Really? Will a full-body cavity search be required,
too, or might there be a point at which the questions have been asked
and answered?

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company