Can I suggest that defined targets are set up for major releases (if they
aren't already).  I don't think that major releases need to happen on a
regular cycle.  That's for patch releases.  Having three months or so's
worth of patches in a point release is useful, but I only want to upgrade
(as opposed to patch) a production environment when it's going to buy me a
well-defined set of new functions, e.g.: MVCC, unlimited row length, etc.,
etc.  So if we don't have a major release for twelve or fourteen months, so
what.  Besides, for anybody running a production environment, it could take
a couple of months worth of inhouse testing before they can make the move
anyway.  When moving from Oracle 7.3 to 8.0, our system will go through 6-9
months worth of strenuous testing.

Are the releases currently time based, or function based, or a little bit of
both?

MikeA

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
>> Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 4:09 PM
>> To: Ansley, Michael
>> Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
>> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Status report: long-query-string changes 
>> 
>> 
>> "Ansley, Michael" <Michael.Ansley@intec.co.za> writes:
>> > When is 6.6 being released?
>> 
>> Schedule?  You want a schedule???
>> 
>> Seriously, I'd have to guess at least three months off.  
>> Vadim wants to
>> do transaction logging, I've got a lot of half-baked 
>> optimizer work to
>> finish, and I dunno what anyone else has up their sleeve.
>> 
>> The goal used to be a major release every three months, but 
>> we haven't
>> met that in some time.  And, since it seems like we are now putting
>> out major releases in order to do significant upgrades and not just
>> incremental stability improvements, I kinda think that a slower cycle
>> (six-month intervals, say) might be a more useful goal at this stage.
>> Has the core group thought about this issue lately?
>> 
>> 			regards, tom lane
>> 

Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:15:50 +0200
"Ansley, Michael" <Michael.Ansley@intec.co.za>
RE: [HACKERS] Status report: long-query-string changes 
> Are the releases currently time based, or function based,
> or a little bit of both?

A bit of both. No new functionality would imply no new full release,
but that hasn't been a problem for the last three years ;)

imho, Tom Lane's query optimizer project and my in-progress join
syntax work would be enough to justify a new release after a couple
more months (we try to have a one month beta cycle to squash bugs and
to ensure testing across platforms). Of course, there are and will be
other new features and internal changes at least as large as the two I
mentioned which could justify the next release also.

                  - Thomas

-- 
Thomas Lockhart				lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu
South Pasadena, California

Mon, 13 Sep 1999 15:50:03 +0000
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: [HACKERS] Status report: long-query-string changes