Re: Crediting reviewers & bug-reporters in the release notes

\Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Excerpts from Bruce Momjian's message of jue jun 16 18:24:16 -0400 2011:
>
> > I should back up and explain that the reason for having usernames on
> > release feature items is not to give credit, but rather to assign blame
> > later, in case the features cause problems.
>
> I call BS on this.  This PoV is perfect for justifying that sponsoring
> companies do not need to get credited, but it's not really the truth.
> Credit *is* given by having people listed in the release notes, whether
> you explicitly admit it or not.  And pissing off contributors by taking
> it away is not something to be done lightly.

I can tell you why _I_ added names to release note items starting 15
years ago.  By putting names on the release note items, if a bug was
found in a release, I could easily know which developer to contact to
get it fixed.  I could have trolled the CVS logs, but it is often
complex to find the right item.  And why not put the developer names in
the release notes?  Who was going to read it except other developers?

Well, a lot has changed in 15 years, and this name thing is only now
being revisited, which is fine.  I find it a happy coincidence that the
names I used to help me are now seen as motivating Postgres
contributions.

Just a reality check, but I don't think the names in the release notes
were originally seen as motivating developers because the assumption was
that only a handful of people even cared about our release notes.

> (If assigning blame and being point of contact is really the truth, why
> is there no email address?)

I already had everyone's email address and it was inefficient to type it
on every item.  I could easily look up their email addresses in my mail
program.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +