On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 10:24 AM, Rich Bowen <rbo...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
> I wanted to be sure that folks are aware of what's going on in the
> Windows/PHP world. I know that, in one sense, it's not our problem, but it
> *feels* like our problem to me, and to many of our users.
>
> PHP5.3.6 was just released, and the Windows binaries are built with VC9,
> meaning that it won't work with our Windows binaries. I know that it's been
> discussed before, and there's a plan to move to VC9, but as of last week, the
> official PHP build doesn't run with the official Apache httpd build. The PHP
> website recommends that folks use the Apache Lounge build.
>
> This sucks.
>
> It sucks that our users have to jump through additional hoops. It sucks even
> more that there wasn't (or at least, it appears to me that there wasn't)
> conversation between the two communities prior to this happening. The folks
> in php-land are aware that it's a problem, but don't see to really think that
> it's *their* problem. For our part, we seem to be unaware that anything
> happened.
>
> I don't know that the relationship between Apache httpd and php communities
> is anybody's *fault*, but it's long struck me as a great shame that there
> isn't closer cooperation between the two communities.
>
> I'm not sure exactly what I'm suggesting we do about this. It would be nice
> if we could provide binaries built with VC9, or if we could recommend on the
> download site that people get binaries from ApacheLounge. I don't know if
> either of these is really an option. How would folks feel about our download
> site encouraging folks to use ApacheLounge's version of 2.2? I suspect that
> there'd be some resistance to this, based on our previous interactions with
> them.
>
> I have a foot in the documentation team of both projects, so I tend to hear
> both sides of the conversation at least from that perspective. I'd like for
> us to be more proactive about strengthening the community bond between us and
> what is probably the most important third-party Apache httpd module. There
> seems to be a pretty strong "they don't ever listen to us" attitude on both
> sides, and I'm not sure that it's really warranted.
I mostly agree with your sentiment.
I don't think we should ever point to third party httpd downloads.
Let those offering binaries compete in the same way as Ubuntu, Fedora,
etc.
I think in general that the Apache-on-Windows user community offers up
a relatively small amount of sacrifice (contributed effort per size of
community) at the same time that the platform has a large number of
technical considerations, and I cannot suggest that we (really, Bill
and tiny number of others) do more work on their behalf.
For open source on Windows in general, I think changes to make it more
practical for "normal" users to build open source is what will
ultimately improve the overall Windows situation (it is an anomaly
that we have such a discussion of binaries), as it enables a more
fruitful conversation ("can you try this patch?" vs. getting stuck at
"you gave me this binary and it fails") and will facilitate the
involvement of more would-be developers. I understand that MS has
done a lot of work to make it more feasible to build PHP + extensions
on Windows. This doesn't help at all the VC6 issue, but it is a big
improvement for the long term. (I wonder if MinGW support by the
various projects is viable for random users, or if a lot more effort
is required to make it smoother.)
