On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 10:51:09PM -0400, Will French wrote: > > Obviously you don't agree with me and that is something I readily > accept. I do have difficulty with the fact that you clearly spent > more time typing your response than considering my points, which > were intended to be constructive.
I don't type very quickly. :-) When I read your comments, they didn't sound very constructive. That could be my fauly, though. So let's see how this goes. > >> You got the truth. Would you prefer someone lie to you about it? > > I will assume that your interest in mysql and participation in this list > indicates that you are somehow involved in the process of software > development. To the extent that I provide feedback to the MySQL developers and do a fair amount of alpha and beta testing, yes. > What is less clear is whether this may be a hobby or your > profession. We use MySQL to run a lot of our processing and some of our web site. > If it is the latter, I would love to know where it is that one can > work in this industry where one is not expected to make projections > about when project milestones might be met. Me too. :-) > This is called project management. And while those of us who simply > love writing code find such pursuits annoying, they are nonetheless > necessary and worthwhile -- accepting this is part of growing up. > And while I applaud the honesty of saying "we won't declare it > stable until it is stable," surely you can see your way clear that > if you were explaining a similar situation to your boss or to your > client, they would almost certainly (and justifyably) want you to > give them more details. This is called accountability. Well, the process (at least historically) goes something like this: The MySQL developers work on the new code and add various features, fix bugs, etc. Eventually, when all the new features are neaely in, they'll try to get folks to test their alpha releases. After things stabilize (meaning that folks don't report bugs, and only bug fixes go into the code), they'll promote the release to a beta. The process repeats. When the beta has been in wide use without an [serious] bug reports for some amount of time (I think that "1 month" used to be the rule), they'll promote it again. Probably to gamma or stable. > >> What more information would be helpful, exactly? Do guesses really > >> help? > > Guesses are nice... estimates are better. What is the difference, you ask? Have you read "The Mythical Man Month" and "Peopleware" by chance? I highly recomend them. The fact is that predicting software releases is hard--really hard. And the folks at MySQL struggle with it. But hey, Windows is never on-time either. So if a multi-billion dollar software company can be off by a year or two (habitually), maybe the standards are pretty low. So a loose estimate is sufficient. I'd like to say that MySQL is getting better at predicting "ship dates" but I've not seen a lot of evidence for that. It really is a hard problem, partly because they have very high standards for what a "stable" release is. > >> But that money isn't paid *to* MySQL AB, so how is that relevant? > > Ironically, the fact that I pay no license fees to MySQL AB is based upon > the fact that I have no production systems that use it and I will not have > production systems that use it until the new functionality coming in 4.1 is > available. But the fact that I have not paid any money to MySQL AB does not > mean that I am not doing things which ultimately improve their bottom line. > Though this is my first posting in a while, there was about a three month > period when I monitored this list every day and often contributed my > knowledge when I thought it could be helpful. I have talked up MySQL to my > colleagues. I have suggested ideas for new features. I certainly do not > feel anyone need give me a medal for any of this, but my point is that by > being yet another active member of the MySQL community, I (with those like > me) help advance the product which will inevitably lead to more sales for > MySQL AB. That's good to hear. I'm a bit surprised. Most of the time when folks discuss the cost, they're only dealing with the licesning and support costs. The fact that you're doing more than that is great. > >> But you fail to tell someone how to know if they're the intended > >> recipient, don't you? > > Um, ok, what planet are your from that you do not recognize a > standard (as in, appended automatically by my smtp server) > disclaimer when you see one. Sure, but that doesn't stop my from pointing 'em out. It's sad when not even our e-mail is safe from the finger prints of the local lawyers. > Just curious, do you also bark at the moon? I'll be sure to pass > your criticism on to the lawyers. Better yet, ask them if those disclaimers have EVER held up in a trial. I've had discussions off and on with a few lawyers about it, and they don't believe the disclaimers make a bit of difference. But it'd be nice to see an actual legal ruling one way or the other. Jeremy -- Jeremy D. Zawodny | Perl, Web, MySQL, Linux Magazine, Yahoo! <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://jeremy.zawodny.com/ MySQL 3.23.51: up 22 days, processed 466,636,228 queries (236/sec. avg) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
