Re: Roadmaps 'n all that

On Aug 31, 2006, at 8:47 PM, Tom Lane wrote:

> [ hijacking this thread over to where the developers hang out ]
>
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>>> It's pointless to suppose that individual developers would really be
>>> answerable to any project-wide management, since that's not who  
>>> they're
>>> paid by.  So I tend to think that a project roadmap would be more  
>>> of an
>>> exercise in wishful thinking than a useful management tool.  OTOH it
>>> *could* be useful, if there are any developers out there  
>>> wondering what
>>> they should work on next.  Are there any ... and would they  
>>> listen to a
>>> roadmap if they had one, rather than scratching their own itches?
>
>> I would certainly listen to a roadmap if it talked to me ...
>
> Well, this question keeps coming up, and we keep arguing about it, and
> we still have no data to say whether it would work well for *this*
> project.  Maybe it's time to take the bull by the horns.
>
> I propose a modest experiment: for the 8.3 development cycle, let's  
> try
> to agree (in the next month or so) on a roadmap of what major features
> should be in 8.3 and who will make each one happen.  A year from now,
> we will know whether this is a great thing we should continue, or we
> should stick to our traditional laissez-faire style of project
> management.  I figure that even if it really sucks, it wouldn't  
> kill us
> to try it for one release cycle --- at the very worst, we'd make up  
> lost
> time in future by no longer needing to waste bandwidth arguing  
> about it.

Would this be a core postgresql code roadmap or something a bit
broader (contrib, custom types, GUI-ish stuff, utilities and what
have you)?

Cheers,  Steve