Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Don Baccus writes: How long until the entire code base gets co-opted? Yeah so what? Nobody's forcing you to use, buy, or pay attention to any such efforts. The market will determine whether the release model of PostgreSQL, Inc. appeals to customers. Open source software is a privilege, and nobody has the right to call someone "irresponsible" because they want to get paid for their work and don't choose to give away their code. -- Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://yi.org/peter-e/
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Ron Chmara wrote: As it is, any company trying to make a closed version of an open source product has some _massive_ work to do. Manuals. Documentation. Sales. Branding. Phone support lines. Legal departments/Lawsuit prevention. Figuring out how to prevent open source from stealing the thunder by duplicating features. And building a _product_. Most Open Source projects are not products, they are merely code, and some horrid documentation, and maybe some support. The companies making money are not making better code, they are making better _products_ And I really havn't seen much in the way of full featured products, complete with printed docs, 24 hour support, tutorials, wizards, templates, a company to sue if the code causes damage, GUI install, setup, removal, etc. etc. etc. This kind of stuff is more along the lines of what Great Bridge is doing. In about a week, we'll be releasing a GB-branded release of 7.0.3 - including printed manuals (much of which is new), a GUI installer (which is open source), support packages including fully-staffed 24/7. Details to follow soon on pgsql-announce. I don't want to speak for Pgsql Inc., but it seems to me that they are pursuing a slightly different business model than us - more focused on providing custom development around the base PostgreSQL software. And that's a great way to get more people using PostgreSQL. Some of what they create for their customers may be open source, some not. It's certainly their decision - and it's a perfectly justifiable business model, followed by open source companies such as Covalent (Apache), Zend (PHP), and TurboLinux. I don't think it's productive or appropriate to beat up on Pgsql Inc for developing bolt-on products in a different way - particularly with Vadim's clarification that the bolt-ons don't require anything special in the open source backend. Our own business model is, as I indicated, different. We got a substantial investment from our parent company, whose chairman sat on the Red Hat board for three years, and a mandate to create a *big* company that could provide the infrastructure (human and technical) to enable PostgreSQL to go up against the proprietary players like Oracle and Microsoft. A fully-staffed 24/7 data center isn't cheap, and our services won't be either. But it's a different type of business - we're providing the benefits of the open source development model to a group of customers that might not otherwise get involved, precisely because they demand to see a company of Great Bridge's heft behind a product before they buy. I think PostgreSQL and other open source projects are big enough for lots of different companies, with lots of different types of business models. Indeed, from what I've seen of Pgsql Inc (and I hope I haven't mischaracterized them), our business models are highly complementary. At Great Bridge, we hope and expect that other companies that "get it" will get more involved with PostgreSQL - that can only add to the strength of the project. Regards, Ned -- Ned Lilly e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vice Presidentw: www.greatbridge.com Evangelism / Hacker Relationsv: 757.233.5523 Great Bridge, LLCf: 757.233.
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Branding. Phone support lines. Legal departments/Lawsuit prevention. Figuring out how to prevent open source from stealing the thunder by duplicating ^^ features. And building a _product_. Oops. You didn't really mean that, did you? Could it be that there are some people out there thinking "let them free software fools do the hard initial work, once things are working nicely, we take over, add a few "secret" ingredients, and voila - the commercial product has been created? After reading the statement above I believe that surely most of the honest developers involved in postgres would wish they had chosen GPL as licensing scheme. I agree that most of the work is always done by a few. I also agree that it would be nice if they could get some financial reward for it. But no dirty tricks please. Do not betray the base. Otherwise, the broad developer base will be gone before you even can say "freesoftware". I, for my part, have learned another lesson today. I was just about to give in with the licensing scheme in our project to allow the GPL incompatible OpenSSL to be used. After reading the above now I know it is worth the extra effort to "roll our own" or wait for another GPL'd solution rather than sacrificing the unique protection the GPL gives us. Horst coordinator gnumed project
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
How long until the entire code base gets co-opted? Yeah so what? Nobody's forcing you to use, buy, or pay attention to any such efforts. The market will determine whether the release model of PostgreSQL, Inc. appeals to customers. Open source software is a privilege, and nobody has the right to call someone "irresponsible" because they want to get paid for their work and don't choose to give away their code. Just bear in mind that although a few developers always deliver outstanding performance in any project, those open source projects have usually seen a huge broad developer base. Hundreds of people putting their effort into the project. These people never ask for a cent, never even dream of some commercial benefit. They do it for the sake of creating something good, being part of something great. Especially in the case of Postgres the "product" has a long heritage, and the most active people today are not neccessarily the ones who have put in most "total" effort (AFAIK, I might be wrong here). Anyway, Postgres would not be where it is today without the hundreds of small cooperators testers. Lock them out from the source code - even if it is only a side branch, and Postgres will die (well, at least it would die for our project) Open source is not a mere marketing model. It is a philosophy. It is about essential freedom, about human progress, about freedom of speech and thought. It is about sharing and caring. Those who don't understand this, should please stick to their ropes and develop closed source from the beginning and not try to fool the free software community. Horst
[HACKERS] Patches applied
I've applied Neale Ferguson's patches for S/390 support, and some fairly extensive patches to repair and improve support for the OVERLAPS operator. I've increased coverage of this in the regression tests, including horology, so those platforms which have variants on these test results will need to be evaluated and those results updated. initdb required. - Thomas
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Thomas Lockhart wrote: As soon as you find a business model which does not require income, let me know. The .com'ers are trying it at the moment, and there seems to be a few flaws... ;) While I have not contributed anything to Postgres yet, I have contributed to other environments. The prospect that I could create a piece of code, spend weeks/years of my own time on something and some entity can come along, take what I've written and create a product which is better for it, and then not share back is offensive. Under GPL it is illegal. (Postgres should try to move to GPL) I am working on a full-text search engine for Postgres. A really fast one, something better than anything else out there. It combines the power and scalability of a web search engine, with the data-mining capabilities of SQL. If I write this extension to Postgres, and release it, is it right that a business can come along, add a few things here and there and introduce a new closed source product on what I have written? That is certainly not what I intend. My intention was to honor the people before me for providing the rich environment which is Postgres. I have made real money using Postgres in a work environment. The time I would give back more than covers MSSQL/Oracle licenses. Open source is a social agreement, not a business model. If you break the social agreement for a business model, the business model will fail because the society which fundamentally created the product you wish to sell will crumble from mistrust (or shun you). In short, it is wrong to sell the work of others without proper compensation and the full agreement of everyone that has contributed. If you don't get that, get out of the open source market now. That said, there is a long standing business model which is 100% compatible with Open Source and it is of the lowly 'VAR.' You do not think for one minute that an Oracle VAR would dare to add features to Oracle and make their own SQL do you? As a PostgreSQL "VAR" you are in a better position that any other VAR. You get to partner in the code development process. (You couldn't ask Oracle to add a feature and expect to keep it to yourself, could you?) I know this is a borderline rant, and I am sorry, but I think it is very important that the integrity of open source be preserved at 100% because it is a very slippery slope, and we are all surrounded by the temptation cheat the spirit of open source "just a little" for short term gain. -- http://www.mohawksoft.com
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
At 11:00 PM 12/2/00 -0800, Vadim Mikheev wrote: There is risk here. It isn't so much in the fact that PostgreSQL, Inc is doing a couple of modest closed-source things with the code. After all, the PG community has long acknowleged that the BSD license would allow others to co-op the code and commercialize it with no obligations. It is rather sad to see PG, Inc. take the first step in this direction. How long until the entire code base gets co-opted? I totaly missed your point here. How closing source of ERserver is related to closing code of PostgreSQL DB server? Let me clear things: (not based on WAL) That's wasn't clear from the blurb. Still, this notion that PG, Inc will start producing closed-source products poisons the well. It strengthens FUD arguments of the "open source can't provide enterprise solutions" variety. "Look, even PostgreSQL, Inc realizes that you must follow a close sourced model in order to provide tools for the corporate world." - Don Baccus, Portland OR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.
Re: [HACKERS] COPY BINARY is broken...
Hi, I would very much like some way of writing binary data to a database. Copy binary recently broke on me after upgrading to 7.0. I have large simulation codes and writing lots of floats to the database by converting them to text first is 1) a real pain, 2) slow and 3) can lead to unexpected loss in precision. I think binary writes would actually be solved better and safer through some type of CORBA interface, but previous discussions seemed to indicate that that is even more of a pain than fixing the current binary interface. So I agree that the current version is a problem, but I do think something needs to be put in place. Not everybody only writes a few numbers from a web page into the database -- some have masses of data to dump into a database. For all I care it doesn't even have to look like SQL, but can be purely accessible through libpq. Adriaan
Re: [HACKERS] COPY BINARY is broken...
Adriaan Joubert [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Copy binary recently broke on me after upgrading to 7.0. I think you're talking about binary copy via the frontend, which has a different set of problems. To fix that, we need to make some protocol changes, which would (preferably) also apply to non-binary frontend copy, which would create a compatibility problem. (The reason the protocol is broken is there's no reasonable way to find or signal the end of the COPY data stream after an error.) I think that's worth doing, but there's no time to design and implement it for 7.1. Maybe for 7.2. I think binary writes would actually be solved better and safer through some type of CORBA interface, CORBA would provide a more machine-independent interface, but migrating to CORBA would be a huge task, and I'm not sure the payoff is worth it... regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
I totaly missed your point here. How closing source of ERserver is related to closing code of PostgreSQL DB server? Let me clear things: (not based on WAL) That's wasn't clear from the blurb. Still, this notion that PG, Inc will start producing closed-source products poisons the well. It strengthens FUD arguments of the "open source can't provide enterprise solutions" variety. "Look, even PostgreSQL, Inc realizes that you must follow a close sourced model in order to provide tools for the corporate world." Did you miss Thomas' answer? Wasn't it clear that the order is to provide income? Vadim
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
I think this trend is MUCH bigger than what Postgres, Inc. is doing... its happening all over the comminity. Heck take a look around... Jabber, Postgres, Red Hat, SuSe, Storm etc. etc. these companies are making good money off a business plan that was basically "hey, lets take some of that open source and make a real product out of it...". As long as they dribble releases into the community, they're not in violation... Its not a bad business model if you think about it, if you can take a product that is good (great as in PG) and add value, sell it and make money, why not? Hell, you didn't have to spend the gazillion RD dollars on the initial design and implementation, your basically reaping the rewards off of the work of other people. Are you ready for hundreds upon hundreds of little projects turning into "startup" companies? It was bound to happen. Why? because money is involved, plain and simple. Maybe its a natural progression of this stuff, who knows, I just know that I've been around the block a couple times, been in the industry too long to know that the minority voice never gets the prize... we usually set the trend and pay for it in the end... fatalistic? maybe. But not far from the truth... Sorry to be a downer... The Red Sox didn't get Mussina - Original Message - From: "Don Baccus" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Ross J. Reedstrom" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "Peter Eisentraut" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL Development" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2000 5:11 PM Subject: Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version At 03:51 PM 12/2/00 -0600, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote: "We expect to have the source code tested and ready to contribute to the open source community before the middle of October. Until that time we are considering requests from a number of development companies and venture capital groups to join us in this process." Where's the damn core code? I've seen a number of examples already of people asking about remote access/replication function, with an eye toward implementing it, and being told "PostgreSQL, Inc. is working on that". It's almost Microsoftesque: preannounce future functionality suppressing the competition. Well, this is just all 'round a bad precedent and an unwelcome path for PostgreSQL, Inc to embark upon. They've also embarked on one fully proprietary product (built on PG), which means they're not an Open Source company, just a sometimes Open Source company. It's a bit ironic to learn about this on the same day I learned that Solaris 8 is being made available in source form. Sun's slowly "getting it" and moving glacially towards Open Source, while PostgreSQL, Inc. seems to be drifting in the opposite direction. if I absolutely need something that's only in CVS right now, I can bite the bullet and use a snapshot server. This work might be released as Open Source, but it isn't an open development scenario. The core work's not available for public scrutiny, and the details of what they're actually up don't appear to be public either. OK, they're probably funding Vadim's work on WAL, so the idictment's probably not 100% accurate - but I don't know that. I'd be really happy with someone reiterating the commitment to an open release, and letting us all know how badly the schedule has slipped. Remember, we're all here to help! Get everyone stomping bugs in code you're going to release soon anyway, and concentrate on the quasi-propriatary extensions. Which makes me wonder, is Vadim's time going to be eaten up by working on these quasi-proprietary extensions that the rest of us won't get for two years unless we become customers of Postgres, Inc? Will Great Bridge step to the plate and fund a truly open source alternative, leaving us with a potential code fork? If IB gets its political problems under control and developers rally around it, two years is going to be a long time to just sit back and wait for PG, Inc to release eRServer. These developments are a major annoyance. - Don Baccus, Portland OR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Peter Eisentraut wrote: mlw writes: There are hundreds (thousands?) of people that have contributed to the development of Postgres, either directly with code, or beta testing, with the assumption that they are benefiting a community. Many would probably not have done so if they had suspected that what they do is used in a product that excludes them. With the BSD license it has always been clear that this would be possible, and for as long as I've been around the core/active developers have frequently reiterated that this is a desirable aspect and in fact encouraged. If you don't like that, then you should have read the license before using the product. I have said before, open source is a social contract, not a business model. Well, you're free to take the PostgreSQL source and start your own "social contract" project; but we don't do that around here. And you don't feel that this is a misappropriation of a public trust? I feel shame for you. -- http://www.mohawksoft.com
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Adam Haberlach wrote: In any case, can we create pgsql-politics so we don't have to go over this issue every three months? Can we create pgsql-benchmarks while we are at it, to take care of the other thread that keeps popping up? no skin off my back: pgsql-advocacy pgsql-chat pgsql-benchmarks -advocacy/-chat are pretty much the same concept ...
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Don Baccus wrote: I *am* one of those volunteers Yes, I well remember you screwing up PG 7.0 just before beta, without bothering to test your code, and leaving on vacation. You were irresponsible then, and you're being irresponsible now. Okay, so let me get this one straight ... it was irresponsible for him to put code in that was broken the last time, but it wouldn't be irresponsible for us to release code that we don't feel is ready this time? *raised eyebrow* Just want to get this straight, as it kinda sounds hypocritical to me, but want to make sure that I understand before I fully arrive at that conclusion ... :)
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Don Baccus wrote: At 04:42 AM 12/3/00 +, Thomas Lockhart wrote: This statement of yours kinda belittles the work done over the past few years by volunteers. imho it does not, Sure it does. You in essence are saying that "advanced replication is so hard that it could only come about if someone were willing to finance a PROPRIETARY solution. The PG developer group couldn't manage it if it were done Open Source". In other words, it is much harder than any of the work done by the same group of people before they started working on proprietary versions. And that the only way to get them doing their best work is to put them on proprietary, or "semi-proprietary" projects, though 24 months from now, who's going to care? You've opened the door to IB prominence, not only shooting PG's open source purity down in flames, but probably PG, Inc's as well - IF IB can figure out their political problems. IB, as it stands, is a damned good product in many ways ahead of PG. You're giving them life by this approach, which is a kind of bizarre businees strategy. You (and others ;) may also be interested in SAPDB (SAP's version of Adabas), that is soon to be released under GPL. It is already downloadable for free use from www.sapdb.org - Hannu
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
mlw wrote: Thomas Lockhart wrote: As soon as you find a business model which does not require income, let me know. The .com'ers are trying it at the moment, and there seems to be a few flaws... ;) While I have not contributed anything to Postgres yet, I have contributed to other environments. The prospect that I could create a piece of code, spend weeks/years of my own time on something and some entity can come along, take what I've written and create a product which is better for it, and then not share back is offensive. Under GPL it is illegal. (Postgres should try to move to GPL) I think that forbidding anyone else from profiting from your work is also somewhat obscene ;) The whole idea of open source is that in open ideas mature faster, bugs are I am working on a full-text search engine for Postgres. A really fast one, something better than anything else out there. Is'nt everybody ;) It combines the power and scalability of a web search engine, with the data-mining capabilities of SQL. Are you doing it in a fully open-source fashion or just planning to release it as OS "when it somewhat works" ? If I write this extension to Postgres, and release it, is it right that a business can come along, add a few things here and there and introduce a new closed source product on what I have written? That is certainly not what I intend. If your intention is to later cash in on proprietary uses of your code you should of course use GPL. My intention was to honor the people before me for providing the rich environment which is Postgres. I have made real money using Postgres in a work environment. The time I would give back more than covers MSSQL/Oracle licenses. Open source is a social agreement, not a business model. Not one but many (and btw. incompatible) social agreements. If you break the social agreement for a business model, You are free to put your additions under GPL, it is just a tradition in PG community not to contaminate the core with anything less free than BSD (and yes, forcing your idea of freedom on other people qualifies as "less free" ;) the business model will fail because the society which fundamentally created the product you wish to sell will crumble from mistrust (or shun you). In short, it is wrong to sell the work of others without proper compensation and the full agreement of everyone that has contributed. If you don't get that, get out of the open source market now. SO now a social contract is a market ? I _am_ confused. That said, there is a long standing business model which is 100% compatible with Open Source and it is of the lowly 'VAR.' You do not think for one minute that an Oracle VAR would dare to add features to Oracle and make their own SQL do you? But if Oracle were released under BSD license, it might benefit both the VAR and the customer to do so under some circumstances. As a PostgreSQL "VAR" you are in a better position that any other VAR. You get to partner in the code development process. (You couldn't ask Oracle to add a feature and expect to keep it to yourself, could you?) You could ask another VAR to do that if you yourself are incapable/don't have time, etc. And of course I can keep it to myself even if done by Oracle. What I can't do is forbid others from having it too . I know this is a borderline rant, and I am sorry, but I think it is very important that the integrity of open source be preserved at 100% because it is a very slippery slope, and we are all surrounded by the temptation cheat the spirit of open source "just a little" for short term gain. Do you mean that anyone who has contributed to an opensource project should be forbidden from doing any closed-source development ? --- Hannu
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Don Baccus wrote: I *am* one of those volunteers Yes, I well remember you screwing up PG 7.0 just before beta, without bothering to test your code, and leaving on vacation. You were irresponsible then, and you're being irresponsible now. Okay, so let me get this one straight ... it was irresponsible for him to put code in that was broken the last time, but it wouldn't be irresponsible for us to release code that we don't feel is ready this time? *raised eyebrow* Just want to get this straight, as it kinda sounds hypocritical to me, but want to make sure that I understand before I fully arrive at that conclusion ... :) IIRC, this thread woke up on someone complaining about PostgreSQl inc promising to release some code for replication in mid-october and asking for confirmation that this is just a schedule slip and that the project is still going on and going to be released as open source. What seems to be the answer is: "NO, we will keep the replication code proprietary". I have not seen this answer myself, but i've got this impression from the contents of the whole discussion. Do you know if this is the case ? --- Hannu
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Hannu Krosing wrote: I know this is a borderline rant, and I am sorry, but I think it is very important that the integrity of open source be preserved at 100% because it is a very slippery slope, and we are all surrounded by the temptation cheat the spirit of open source "just a little" for short term gain. Do you mean that anyone who has contributed to an opensource project should be forbidden from doing any closed-source development ? No, not at all. At least for me, if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently. -- http://www.mohawksoft.com
[HACKERS] RI tutorial needs tech review
(I posted this yesterday, but it never appeared. Apologies if it's a duplicate to you.) I've written ( submitted to pgsql-docs) a tutorial on using RI features and on alter the system catalog to change RI properties for existing relationships. I needs polishing, etc., but, mostly it needs someone more familiar than I to look at the last section, on Hacking RI. All of the changes I recommend I've tried in my databases (pg7.0.2 and pg7.1-devel), and haven't noticed any problems, but if anyone has any words of warning/advice/additional tips, I'd appreciate it.) It should be in today's pgsql-docs listings. -- Joel Burton, Director of Information Systems -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support Center of Washington (www.scw.org)
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
"Gary MacDougall" [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No offense Trond, if you were in on the Red Hat IPO from the start, you'd have to say those people made "good money". I'm talking about the business as such, not the IPO where the price went stratospheric (we were priced like we were earning 1 or 2 billion dollars year, which was kindof weird). -- Trond Eivind Glomsrød Red Hat, Inc.
Re: [HACKERS] broken locale in 7.0.2 without multibyte support (FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE) ?
Oleg Bartunov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote a couple months ago: It's clear that we must use 'unsigned char' instead of 'char' and corrected version runs ok on both systems. That's why I suspect that gcc 2.95.2 has different default under FreeBSD which could cause problem with LC_CTYPE in 7.0.2 ok. will check this. I've recompile 7.0.2 on freebsd with -funsigned-char and the problem has gone away. This prove my suggestion. I also checked 6.5 and it has the same probelm on FreeBSD. Also, this makes clear many complains about broken locale under FreeBSD I got from people. Hmm, current cvs has the same problem :-( Today I inserted (unsigned char) casts into all the ctype.h function calls I could find. This issue should be fixed as of current cvs. Please try it again when you have time. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Gary MacDougall wrote: No, not at all. At least for me, if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. Actually, your not legally bound to anything if you write "new" additional code, even if its dependant on something. You could consider it "propietary" and charge for it. There a tons of these things going on right now. Having dependancy on an open source product/code/functionality does not make one bound to make thier code "open source". If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently. The issue isn't "fairness", the issue really is really trust. And from what I'm seeing, like anything else in life, if you rely solely on trust when money is involved, the system will fail--eventually. sad... isn't it? That's why, as bad as it is, GPL is the best answer. -- http://www.mohawksoft.com
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
No, not at all. At least for me, if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. Actually, your not legally bound to anything if you write "new" additional code, even if its dependant on something. You could consider it "propietary" and charge for it. There a tons of these things going on right now. Having dependancy on an open source product/code/functionality does not make one bound to make thier code "open source". If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently. The issue isn't "fairness", the issue really is really trust. And from what I'm seeing, like anything else in life, if you rely solely on trust when money is involved, the system will fail--eventually. sad... isn't it? -- http://www.mohawksoft.com
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 05:17:36PM -0500, mlw wrote: ... if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. This is short and I will say no more: The entire social contract around PostgreSQL is written down in the license. Those who have contributed to the project (are presumed to) have read it and agreed to it before submitting their changes. Some people have contributed intending someday to fold the resulting code base into their proprietary product, and carefully checked to ensure the license would allow it. Nobody has any legal or moral right to impose extra use restrictions, on their own code or (especially!) on anybody else's. If you would like to place additional restrictions on your own contributions, you can: 1. Work on other projects. (Adabas will soon be GPL, but you can start now. Others are coming, too.) There's always plenty of work to be done on Free Software. 2. Fork the source base, add your code, and release the whole thing under GPL. You can even fold in changes from the original project, later. (Don't expect everybody to get along, afterward.) A less drastic alternative is to release GPL'd patches. 3. Grin and bear it. Greed is a sin, but so is envy. Flame wars about licensing mainly distract people from writing code. How would *you* like the time spent? Nathan Myers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Adam Haberlach wrote: In any case, can we create pgsql-politics so we don't have to go over this issue every three months? Can we create pgsql-benchmarks while we are at it, to take care of the other thread that keeps popping up? pgsql-yawn, where any of them can happen as often and long as they want. Jan -- #==# # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. # # Let's break this rule - forgive me. # #== [EMAIL PROTECTED] #
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
mlw wrote: [heavily edited] No, not at all. At least for me, if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently. You're missing the point almost completely. We've been around on this GPL-vs-BSD discussion many many many times before, and the discussion always ends up at the same place: we aren't changing the license. The two key reasons (IMHO) are: 1. The original code base is BSD. We do not have the right to unilaterally relabel that code as GPL. Maybe we could try to say that all additions/changes after a certain date are GPL, but that'd become a hopeless mess very shortly; how would you keep track of what was which? Not to mention the fact that a mixed-license project would not satisfy GPL partisans anyway. 2. Since Postgres is a database, and the vast majority of uses for databases are business-related, we have to have a license that businesses will feel comfortable with. One aspect of that comfort is that they be able to do things like building proprietary applications atop the database. If we take a purist GPL approach, we'll just drive away a lot of potential users and contributors. (I for one wouldn't be here today, most likely, if Postgres had been GPL --- my then company would not have gotten involved with it.) I have nothing against GPL; it's appropriate for some things. But it's not appropriate for *this* project, because of history and subject matter. We've done just fine with the BSD license and I do not see a reason to think that GPL would be an improvement. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
At 5:17 PM -0500 12/3/00, mlw wrote: I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently. Yeah, it really sucks when companies that are in buisness to make money by creating solutions and support for end users take the hard work of volenteers, commit resources to extending and enhancing that work, and make that work more accessable end users (for a fee). Maybe it's unfair that the people at the bottom of that chain don't reap a percentage of the revenue generated at the top, but those people were free to read the license of the product they were contributing to. Ironically, the GPL protects the future income a programmer much bettter than the BSD license, becuase under the GPL the original author can sell the code to a commercial enterprise who otherwise would not have been able to use it. Even more ironically, the GPL doesn't prevent 3rd parties from feeding at the trough as long as they DON'T extend and enhance the product. (Though Red Hat and friends donate work back to maintain community support.) To me, Open Source is about admitting that the Computer Science field is in it's infancy, and the complex systems we're building today are the fundamental building blocks of tomorrow's systems. It is about exchanging control for adoption, a trade-off that has millions of case studies. Think Different, -pmb -- "Every time you provide an option, you're asking the user to make a decision. That means they will have to think about something and decide about it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but, in general, you should always try to minimize the number of decisions that people have to make." http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$51
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Hannu Krosing wrote: The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Don Baccus wrote: I *am* one of those volunteers Yes, I well remember you screwing up PG 7.0 just before beta, without bothering to test your code, and leaving on vacation. You were irresponsible then, and you're being irresponsible now. Okay, so let me get this one straight ... it was irresponsible for him to put code in that was broken the last time, but it wouldn't be irresponsible for us to release code that we don't feel is ready this time? *raised eyebrow* Just want to get this straight, as it kinda sounds hypocritical to me, but want to make sure that I understand before I fully arrive at that conclusion ... :) IIRC, this thread woke up on someone complaining about PostgreSQl inc promising to release some code for replication in mid-october and asking for confirmation that this is just a schedule slip and that the project is still going on and going to be released as open source. What seems to be the answer is: "NO, we will keep the replication code proprietary". I have not seen this answer myself, but i've got this impression from the contents of the whole discussion. Do you know if this is the case ? If this is the impression that someone gave, I am shocked ... Thomas himself has already posted stating that it was a scheduale slip on his part. Vadim did up the software days before the Oracle OpenWorld conference, but it was a very rudimentary implementation. At the show, Thomas dove in to build a basic interface to it, and, as time permits, has been working on packaging to get it into contrib before v7.1 is released ... I've been trying to follow this thread, and seem to have missed where someone arrived at the conclusion that we were proprietarizing(word?) this ... we do apologize that it didn't get out mid-October, but it is/was purely a scheduale slip ...
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, mlw wrote: Hannu Krosing wrote: I know this is a borderline rant, and I am sorry, but I think it is very important that the integrity of open source be preserved at 100% because it is a very slippery slope, and we are all surrounded by the temptation cheat the spirit of open source "just a little" for short term gain. Do you mean that anyone who has contributed to an opensource project should be forbidden from doing any closed-source development ? No, not at all. At least for me, if I write code which is dependent on the open source work of others, then hell yes, that work should also be open source. That, to me, is the difference between right and wrong. If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. I honestly feel that it is wrong to take what others have shared and use it for the basis of something you will not share, and I can't understand how anyone could think differently.
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote: If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are not integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order to make it work ... ... so, where is this whole outcry coming from?
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 08:49:09PM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Hannu Krosing wrote: IIRC, this thread woke up on someone complaining about PostgreSQl inc promising to release some code for replication in mid-october and asking for confirmation that this is just a schedule slip and that the project is still going on and going to be released as open source. That would be me asking the question, as a reply to Don's concern regarding the 'prorietary extension on a 24 mo. release delay' What seems to be the answer is: "NO, we will keep the replication code proprietary". I have not seen this answer myself, but i've got this impression from the contents of the whole discussion. Do you know if this is the case ? If this is the impression that someone gave, I am shocked ... Thomas himself has already posted stating that it was a scheduale slip on his part. Actually, Thomas said: Thomas Hmm. What has kept replication from happening in the past? It Thomas is a big job and difficult to do correctly. It is entirely my Thomas fault that you haven't seen the demo code released; I've been Thomas packaging it to make it a bit easier to work with. I noted the use of the words "demo code" rather than "core code". That bothered (and still bothers) me, but I didn't reply at the time, since there was already enough heat in this thread. I'll take your interpretation to mean it's just a matter of semantics. [...] Vadim did up the software days before the Oracle OpenWorld conference, but it was a very rudimentary implementation. At the show, Thomas dove in to build a basic interface to it, and, as time permits, has been working on packaging to get it into contrib before v7.1 is released ... I've been trying to follow this thread, and seem to have missed where someone arrived at the conclusion that we were proprietarizing(word?) this ... we do apologize that it didn't get out mid-October, but it is/was purely a scheduale slip ... Mixture of the silent schedule slip on the core code, and the explicit statement on the erserver.com page regarding the 'proprietary extensions' with a delayed source release. The biggest problem I see with having core developers making proprietary extensions is the potentional for conflict of interest when and if some of us donate equivalent code to the core. The core developers who have also done proprietary versions will have to be very cautious when working on such code. They're in a bind, with two parts. First, they have obligations to their employer and their employer's partners to not release the closed work early. Second, possibly ignoring such independent extensions, or even actively excluding them for the core, in favor of their own code. The core developers _do_ have a bit of a track record favoring each others code over external code, as is natural: we all trust work more from sources we know better, especially when that source is ourselves. But this favoratism could work against the earliest possible open solution. I'm still anxious to see the core patches needed to support replication. Since you've leaked that they work going back to v6.5, I have a feeling the approach may not be the one I was hoping for. Ross
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
I'm still anxious to see the core patches needed to support replication. Since you've leaked that they work going back to v6.5, I have a feeling the approach may not be the one I was hoping for. There are no core patches required to support replication. This has been said already, but perhaps lost in the noise. - Thomas
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
I'm agreeing with the people like SePICK and erServer. I'm only being sort of cheeky in saying that they wouldn't have had a product had it not been for the Open Source that they are leveraging off of. Making money? I don't know what they're plans are, but at some point I would fully expect *someone* to make money. - Original Message - From: "The Hermit Hacker" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Gary MacDougall" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "mlw" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Hannu Krosing" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Thomas Lockhart" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Don Baccus" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL Development" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 7:53 PM Subject: Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote: If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are not integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order to make it work ... ... so, where is this whole outcry coming from?
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
Correct me if I'm wrong but in the last 3 years what company that you know of didn't consider an IPO part of the "business and such". Most tech companies that have been formed in the last 4 - 5 years have one thing on the brain--IPO. It's the #1 thing (sadly) that they care about. I only wished these companies cared as much about *creating* and inovation more than they cared about going public... g. No offense Trond, if you were in on the Red Hat IPO from the start, you'd have to say those people made "good money". I'm talking about the business as such, not the IPO where the price went stratospheric (we were priced like we were earning 1 or 2 billion dollars year, which was kindof weird). -- Trond Eivind Glomsrød Red Hat, Inc.
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote: If this is the impression that someone gave, I am shocked ... Thomas himself has already posted stating that it was a scheduale slip on his part. Actually, Thomas said: Thomas Hmm. What has kept replication from happening in the past? It Thomas is a big job and difficult to do correctly. It is entirely my Thomas fault that you haven't seen the demo code released; I've been Thomas packaging it to make it a bit easier to work with. I noted the use of the words "demo code" rather than "core code". That bothered (and still bothers) me, but I didn't reply at the time, since there was already enough heat in this thread. I'll take your interpretation to mean it's just a matter of semantics. there is nothing that we are developing at this date that is *core* code ... the "demo code" that we are going to be putting into contrib is a simplistic version, and the first cut, of what we are developing ... like everything in contrib, it will be hack-on-able, extendable, etc ... I'm still anxious to see the core patches needed to support replication. Since you've leaked that they work going back to v6.5, I have a feeling the approach may not be the one I was hoping for. this is where the 'confusion' appears to be arising .. there are no *patches* ... anything that will require patches to the core server will almost have to be put to the open source or we hit problems where development continues without us ... what we are doing with replication requires *zero* patches to the server, it is purely a third-party application ...
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote:
I'm agreeing with the people like SePICK and erServer.
I'm only being sort of cheeky in saying that they wouldn't have had a
product had
it not been for the Open Source that they are leveraging off of.
So, basically, if I hadn't pulled together Thomas, Bruce and Vadim 5 years
ago, when Jolly and Andrew finished their graduate thesis, and continued
to provide the resources required to bring PgSQL from v1.06 to now, we
wouldn't be able to use that as a basis for third party applications
... pretty much, ya, that sums it up ...
- Original Message -
From: "The Hermit Hacker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "Gary MacDougall" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: "mlw" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Hannu Krosing" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Thomas
Lockhart" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Don Baccus"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL Development"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote:
If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from
uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what
ever you want.
Thats a given.
okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived
from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are not
integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order to
make it work ...
... so, where is this whole outcry coming from?
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: [EMAIL PROTECTED] secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 08:53:08PM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote: If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are not integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order to make it work ... ... so, where is this whole outcry coming from? This paragraph from erserver.com: eRServer development is currently concentrating on core, universal functions that will enable individuals and IT professionals to implement PostgreSQL ORDBMS solutions for mission critical datawarehousing, datamining, and eCommerce requirements. These initial developments will be published under the PostgreSQL Open Source license, and made available through our sites, Certified Platinum Partners, and others in PostgreSQL community. led me (and many others) to believe that this was going to be a tighly integrated service, requiring code in the PostgreSQL core, since that's the normal use of 'core' around here. Now that I know it's a completely external implementation, I feel bad about griping about deadlines. I _do_ wish I'd known this _design choice_ a bit earlier, as it impacts how I'll try to do some things with pgsql, but that's my own fault for over interpreting press releases and pre-announcements. Ross
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote: On Sun, Dec 03, 2000 at 08:53:08PM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote: If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do what ever you want. Thats a given. okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are not integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order to make it work ... ... so, where is this whole outcry coming from? This paragraph from erserver.com: eRServer development is currently concentrating on core, universal functions that will enable individuals and IT professionals to implement PostgreSQL ORDBMS solutions for mission critical datawarehousing, datamining, and eCommerce requirements. These initial developments will be published under the PostgreSQL Open Source license, and made available through our sites, Certified Platinum Partners, and others in PostgreSQL community. led me (and many others) to believe that this was going to be a tighly integrated service, requiring code in the PostgreSQL core, since that's the normal use of 'core' around here. Now that I know it's a completely external implementation, I feel bad about griping about deadlines. I _do_ wish I'd known this _design choice_ a bit earlier, as it impacts how I'll try to do some things with pgsql, but that's my own fault for over interpreting press releases and pre-announcements. Apologies from our side as well ... failings on the english language and choice of said on our side ... the last thing that we want to do is have to maintain patches across multiple versions for stuff that is core to the server ... Thomas/Vadim can easily correct me if I've missed something, but to the best of my knowledge, from our many discussions, anything that is *core* to the PgSQL server itself will always be released similar to any other project (namely, tested and open) ... including hooks for any proprietary projects ... the sanctity of the *core* server is *always* foremost in our minds, no matter what other projects we are working on ...
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
bingo.
Not just third-party app's, but think of all the vertical products that
include PG...
I'm right now wondering if TIVO uses it?
You have to think that PG will show up in some pretty interesting money
making products...
So yes, had you not got the ball rolling well, you know what I'm saying.
g.
- Original Message -
From: "The Hermit Hacker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "Gary MacDougall" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: "mlw" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Hannu Krosing" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Thomas
Lockhart" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Don Baccus"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL Development"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 10:18 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote:
I'm agreeing with the people like SePICK and erServer.
I'm only being sort of cheeky in saying that they wouldn't have had a
product had
it not been for the Open Source that they are leveraging off of.
So, basically, if I hadn't pulled together Thomas, Bruce and Vadim 5 years
ago, when Jolly and Andrew finished their graduate thesis, and continued
to provide the resources required to bring PgSQL from v1.06 to now, we
wouldn't be able to use that as a basis for third party applications
... pretty much, ya, that sums it up ...
- Original Message -
From: "The Hermit Hacker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "Gary MacDougall" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: "mlw" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Hannu Krosing" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Thomas
Lockhart" [EMAIL PROTECTED]; "Don Baccus"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; "PostgreSQL Development"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Gary MacDougall wrote:
If you write a program which stands on its own, takes no work from
uncompensated parties, then you have the unambiguous right to do
what
ever you want.
Thats a given.
okay, then now I'm confused ... neither SePICK or erServer are derived
from uncompensated parties ... they work over top of PgSQL, but are
not
integrated into them, nor have required any changes to PgSQL in order
to
make it work ...
... so, where is this whole outcry coming from?
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick:
Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: [EMAIL PROTECTED] secondary:
scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
Re: [HACKERS] compiling pg 7.0.3 on sco 5.0.5
Tom Lane wrote: This is a header bug (there's a backend header file that some bright soul put a static function declaration into :-( ... and the function Actually, it's a static function, not a declaration. The DISABLE_COMPLEX_MACRO definition was originally put in to work around a macro size limitation of the UnixWare 2.1 C compiler (and later the SCO UDK (Universal Development Kit)). If the gnu C compiler is being used it should not be defined. The function used to replace the macro was placed in the header and defined as static so that the UnixWare compiler would compile the function in-line where ever it was used. can't link outside the backend ... and ecpg includes that header, even though it has no use for the particular function). I'd suggest trying to remove the #define DISABLE_COMPLEX_MACRO from port/sco.h. If it compiles and passes regress tests that way, you're better off without the #define anyhow. -- | Billy G. Allie| Domain: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | /| | 7436 Hartwell | Compuserve: 76337,2061 |-/-|- | Dearborn, MI 48126| MSN...: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |/ |LLIE | (313) 582-1540| PGP signature
[HACKERS] RI tutorial hack reading needed
(apologies for posting directly to pgsql-hackers, but I'm asking for a hacker to explicitly check on the accuracy of another posting!) I've written ( submitted to pgsql-docs) a tutorial on using RI features and on alter the system catalog to change RI properties for existing relationships. I needs polishing, etc., but, mostly it needs someone more familiar than I to look at the last section, on Hacking RI. All of the changes I recommend I've tried in my databases (pg7.0.2 and pg7.1-devel), and haven't noticed any problems, but if anyone has any words of warning/advice/additional tips, I'd appreciate it.) It should be in today's pgsql-docs listings. Thanks! Joel Burton [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 12:00:12AM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, Nathan Myers wrote: On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 07:02:01PM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: v7.1 should improve crash recovery ... ... with the WAL stuff that Vadim is producing, you'll be able to recover up until the point that the power cable was pulled out of the wall. Please do not propagate falsehoods like the above. It creates unsatisfiable expectations, and leads people to fail to take proper precautions and recovery procedures. After a power outage on an active database, you may have corruption at low levels of the system, and unless you have enormous redundancy (and actually use it to verify everything) the corruption may go undetected and result in (subtly) wrong answers at any future time. The logging in 7.1 protects transactions against many sources of database crash, but not necessarily against OS crash, and certainly not against power failure. (You might get lucky, or you might just think you were lucky.) This is the same as for most databases; an embedded database that talks directly to the hardware might be able to do better. We're talking about transaction logging here ... nothing gets written to it until completed ... if I take a "known to be clean" backup from the night before, restore that and then run through the transaction logs, my data should be clean, unless my tape itself is corrupt. If the power goes off half way through a write to the log, then that transaction wouldn't be marked as completed and won't roll into the restore ... Sorry, wrong. First, the only way that your backups could have any relationship with the transaction logs is if they are copies of the raw table files with the database shut down, rather than the normal "snapshot" backup. Second, the transaction log is not, as has been noted far too frequently for Vince's comfort, really written atomically. The OS has promised to write it atomically, and given the opportunity, it will. If you pull the plug, all promises are broken. if a disk goes corrupt, I'd expect that the redo log would possibly have a problem with corruption .. but if I pull the plug, unless I've somehow damaged the disk, I would expect my redo log to be clean *and*, unless Vadim totally messed something up, if there is any corruption in the redo log, I'd expect that restoring from it would generate from red flags ... You have great expectations, but nobody has done the work to satisfy them, so when you pull the plug, I'd expect that you will be left in the dark, alone and helpless. Vadim has done an excellent job on what he set out to do: optimize transaction processing. Designing and implementing a factor-of-twenty speed improvement on a professional-quality database engine demanded great effort and expertise. To complain that he hasn't also done a lot of other stuff would be petty. Nathan Myers [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
At 01:06 PM 12/3/00 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote: Open source software is a privilege, I admit that I don't subscribe to Stallman's "source to software is a right" argument. That's far off my reality map. and nobody has the right to call someone "irresponsible" because they want to get paid for their work and don't choose to give away their code. However, I do have the right to make such statements, just as you have the right to disagree. It's called the first amendment in my country. - Don Baccus, Portland OR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.
postgres docs (was Re: [HACKERS] Crash during WAL recovery?)
Hello, Before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US I had been following with great interest the thread regarding Vadim's English and the postgres docs. Since this was posted about 200 messages ago, I replied as a new thread... I hope you don't mind! I am interested in volunteering some time to helping with the documentation if the developers feel that I could be of service. I am not a C coder, although I do a lot of CGI programming in PHP and Perl. Mostly I am a database and Unix systems administrator for Combimatrix, a biotech company near Seattle, Washington. Although I'm not a technical writer, I have some background in writing, having been an English composition instructor at the University of Connecticut and a Spanish and Linguistics major in college before that. I'm fairly new to Postgres, but for the last two months I have been helping develop applications in Java and PHP that rely on it, and have become by and large comfortable with it. I had used MySQL for most of my work over the last two years and now find myself wondering how I ever got anything done. Please, no one should take this the wrong way, but despite its lack of important features relative to Postgres, I very much enjoyed working with MySQL in large part because of its nicely organized and constantly updated documentation. Quite honestly this is the one area where Postgres still needs to catch up, and if there's any way at all I can help make that happen I would like to be involved. So, if you think I can be of any service, please let me know. Best regards, Norm More generally, a lot of the PG documentation could use the attention of a professional copy editor --- and I'm sad to say that the parts contributed by native English speakers aren't necessarily any cleaner than the parts contributed by those who are not. If you have the time and energy to submit corrections, please fall to!
[HACKERS] Postgresql on dynix/ptx system
Hi I'm compiling (not, I'm trying to compile) last version of Postgresql on Sequent Dynix/ptx ver 4.4.7 system. Under compilation process with gcc (ver 2.7.2 ported on dynix/pt) is reporting several errors. If someone is ready to help me with this process please send me answer. Radek
Re: [HACKERS] beta testing version
At 03:35 PM 11/30/00 -0800, Nathan Myers wrote: On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 07:02:01PM -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote: v7.1 should improve crash recovery ... ... with the WAL stuff that Vadim is producing, you'll be able to recover up until the point that the power cable was pulled out of the wall. Please do not propagate falsehoods like the above. It creates unsatisfiable expectations, and leads people to fail to take proper precautions and recovery procedures. Yeah, I posted similar stuff to the PHPbuilder forum in regard to PG. The logging in 7.1 protects transactions against many sources of database crash, but not necessarily against OS crash, and certainly not against power failure. (You might get lucky, or you might just think you were lucky.) This is the same as for most databases; an embedded database that talks directly to the hardware might be able to do better. Let's put it this way ... Oracle, a transaction-safe DB with REDO logging, has for a very long time implemented disk mirroring. Now, why would they do that if you could pull the plug on the processor and depend on REDO logging to save you? And even then you're expected to provide adequate power backup to enable clean shutdown. The real safety you get is that your battery sez "we need to shut down!" but has enough power to let you. Transactions in progress aren't logged, but everything else can tank cleanly, and your DB is in a consistent state. Mirroring protects you against (some) disk drive failures (but not those that are transparent to the RAID controller/driver - if your drive writes crap to the primary side of the mirror and no errors are returned to the hardware/driver, the other side of the mirror can faithfully reproduce them on the mirror!) But since drives contain bearings and such that are much more likely to fail than electronics (good electronics and good designs, at least), mechanical failure's more likely and will be known to whatever is driving the drive. And you're OK then... - Don Baccus, Portland OR [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.
[HACKERS] pg_ident.conf
I have Red Hat Linux 6.2 , PostgreSQL 7.0.2. Could anybody help me to configure ident daemon using the file pg_ident.conf Thanks in advance, anuradha
RE: [HACKERS] 8192 BLCKSZ ?]
The cost difference between 32K vs 8K disk reads/writes are so small these days when compared with overall cost of the disk operation itself, that you can even measure it, well below 1%. Remember seek times advertised on disks are an average. It has been said how small the difference is - therefore in my opinion it should remain at 8KB to maintain best average performance with all existing platforms. I say its best let the OS and mass storage subsystem worry about read-ahead caching and whether they actually read 8KB off the disk, or 32KB or 64KB when we ask for 8. - Andrew
[HACKERS] redundancy and disk i/o
Hi, I have two questions 1. Is it possible to set up a set of redundant disks for a database? one of them being remote from the database? 2. If I want to use my i/o routines for disk i/o, is it possible? does postgres support such APIs? thanks, Sandeep
