Re: 8.4 release planning

OK, time for me to chime in.

I think the outstanding commit-fest items can be broken down into four
sections:
o  Log streamingo  Hot standbyo  SE-PostgreSQLo  Others

I think we all agree that log streaming is not ready for 8.4, and that
delaying for this feature would lead to an indeterminate delay.  I have
already talked to the NTT folks, and as painful as it is, I think they
have accepted this --- many thanks to them.

Hot standby seems to be having a lot of code churn.  I am not sure if it
is because the patch is being polished for completion or if lots of new
problems are being discovered and fixed.  Tom and I have both given up
trying to track this patch.  Fortunately, Heikki has been following it
closely, so I think Heikki is going to make the final decision if hot
standby is ready for 8.4 (because he is going to have to stand behind it
as a committer).

SE-PostgreSQL has been in steady development for a year so this is the
time to decide about it.  My feeling is if we don't accept it now, we
are never going to have SE-Linux or row-level security.  The next week
should show us the right direction when we start discussion on
Wednesday, noon GMT.

The other patches are 1-2 weeks work and will be dealt with like patches
from previous commit-fests.

FYI, I think delaying a major release to get feature X always going to
be counter-productive because it requires restarting development with no
known completion time, and they typical behavior is "just 2 more weeks",
"just two more weeks", over and over again, so no one knows how much
time they have to develop stuff and things stall badly.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +