Thank for the useful discussion. A couple comments follow:
Daniel John Debrunner wrote:
Rick Hillegas wrote:
I would like to understand how the community influences the standards
which govern Derby:
1) SQL - I've been participating in Derby for a year now. Over the past
year I don't recall any discussion about a need to change the SQL
standard. We have proposed new language in rare cases not covered by the
ANSI volumes. However, I don't recall any attempt to contact the SQL
group and try to change their spec. Do we need to influence this spec
and if so, how do we propose to do so?
I've work with the SQL group through IBM's representives (since I work
for IBM). So far from Derby it's been more around getting clarifications
and pointing out areas where the spec is unclear or wrong. I don't know
how an individual would get involved in this process.
You could ask the Postgres folks what why do, or the generic open source
database mailing list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
I posed this question on the hackers list. Postgres apparently doesn't
participate in the ANSI effort. I was pointed at the following helpful
link:
http://www.ansi.org/membership/overview/overview.aspx?menuid=2
According to the information there, a community member would rent an
ANSI seat for $500 a year.
2) JDBC - There has been substantial discussion about the upcoming JDBC4
spec.. Fortunately for us, the spec lead is a member of our community.
In several cases he has taken our viewpoint back to the JDBC expert
group and advocated our position. However, we don't know who will lead
the expert group for JDBC5. How do we expect to influence the next rev
of JDBC?
The ASF is on the JCP "Executive Committee for J2SE/J2EE", in addition
it seems individuals can join the JCP for $0.
http://jcp.org/en/participation/membership
So it seems plenty of opportunity to get involved in the next JDBC.
3) DRDA - Over the last year, I failed to get a Boolean datatype into
the DRDA spec. This stemmed from the internal dynamics and pay-for-play
nature of the spec's governing body, the DBIOP Consortium. How do we
expect to influence the DRDA spec?
Do you have a summary of what happened, I remember e-mails that the
DBIOP was getting back together and now your comments that the process
didn't work, but I don't recall seeing anything inbetween.
Here't the sequence of events so far:
a) The DBIOP Consortium is a committee of companies who use DRDA, mostly
to connect to DB2. The Consortium lives under the umbrella of the Open
Group. The committee was dormant last August when I raised the
possibility of adding some new datatypes to the DRDA spec. Last
November, representatives from the involved companies held a phone
conference, in which we agreed to revive the DBIOP Consortium. It turned
out that other companies were interested in adding new datatypes too.
The participating companies were:
Sun
Microsoft
IBM
Rocket Software
Starquest Ventures
b) After that a website was set up and IBM and I drafted some proposals
on the side. The proposals were not circulated publicly.
c) In April, the Open Group contacted me, saying that the DBIOP
Consortium was a pay-to-play arrangement: participating companies were
being asked to pay $25K/year to be Consortium members.
d) In mid-May, the involved companies met again. Some companies
expressed tentative willingness to move forward. However, I could not
commit my employer (Sun Microsystems) to paying $25K/year.
e) I have not heard anything since.
If there's a general solution which covers all of these cases, that's great.
If we handle each spec differently, that's fine too. I'd just like some discussion and guidance.
I would guess it's going to be different in each case.
Dan.
