On Monday 03 December 2007 20:19, David Boyes wrote:
> > OK, that is good.  After that the most important thing is to
>
> understand
>
> > *exactly* what files Bacula will need to be able to build the Bacula
>
> DB2
>
> > driver and what their license is.
> > <snip>
> > The other critical issue is the availability of those files: that is
>
> can
>
> > anyone get them, or are they available only to certain people and
>
> under
>
> > what
> > conditions.
>
> The files he needs are part of the DB/2 Client Development kit, which
> are part of DB/2. If you legitimately have DB/2 UDB or DB/2 for z/OS,
> you have them. If you don't, then you don't, and you can't get them any
> other way. You'd also have to take into consideration what platforms
> support DB/2 -- DB/2 isn't on all the platforms Bacula runs on, which
> will cause problems.

As long as the project could get a copy of the necessary code, I don't see any 
problem.  The fact that DB2 isn't on all the platforms that Bacula runs on is 
not a problem -- what counts is that users have a choice and that the source 
is open and that users are not restrained from building it on their systems.

>
> Sounds like it might be smarter to implement a Bacula interface to the
> Perl DBI:: package interface, and then the problem is permanently
> solved, and not just for DB/2, but for just about any useful database
> that currently exists. That would give us Oracle, Ingres, DB/2, Sybase,
> etc w/o imposing other restrictions. There would be some restrictions on
> what SQL statements can be fed to the DBI interface, but Bacula doesn't
> do anything that fancy, so the restrictions would be fairly minor, IMHO.

I am a bit skeptical about OBDC since all the good DBAs that I know tell me 
that it doesn't really work as it should.  Judging from the problems we have 
interfacing to SQLite, MySQL and PostgreSQL, I can understand what they are 
saying.  Also Bacula is now considerably more sophisticated in its use of SQL 
now that we have Batch Insert and bat.

>
> > The next thing that is not a requirement but is important is that any
>
> user
>
> > who
> > wants to get those files to build the DB2 driver should have access to
> > them.
>
> See above.
>

After thinking about it a bit, it seems to me that both Oracle and DB2 rather 
freely provide developer's kits to pretty much any one who wants one -- that 
would resolve the problem of availability of the interface code.  The only 
other issue is the problem of incompatible licenses, which is much less of a 
problem now that Bacula's code is "clean": i.e. written by me; code with BSD 
3 clause license; or written by contributors that have signed the FSFE FLA.

Best regards,

Kern

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