Horton

Thread

  1. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.org> — 2001-04-29T05:02:08Z

    Totally agreed.

It could just be from a lack of people's time to do things, or I wonder
if  Alfred's patch is doing things which might not be beneficial? 
(Maybe there have been decisions on a better way to get it done, but it
just hasn't been implemented yet).

I'm curious also.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

geustace@godzone.net.nz wrote:
> 
> I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
> attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.
> 
> If the work that Alfred has done is as effective as he claims, then
> there must be a *REALLY* good reason why it isn't being included.
> 
> I don't want to start any form of war....
> But as a user I'd be interested to know why such a patch would appear
> to be unacceptable.
> 
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  2. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net> — 2001-04-29T05:22:53Z

    * geustace@godzone.net.nz <geustace@godzone.net.nz> [010428 21:44] wrote:
> I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
> attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.

I'm assuming you refer to the updated page at:
http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/

> If the work that Alfred has done is as effective as he claims, then
> there must be a *REALLY* good reason why it isn't being included.

The work is not mine.  It was contracted by my previous employer
that I still maintain a close working relationship with.

> I don't want to start any form of war....
> But as a user I'd be interested to know why such a patch would appear
> to be unacceptable.

I never said anyone accused the patch was "unacceptable" I just
said it was never integrated nor brought up to date with the 7.1
branch.

I'll update the vacfix page to explain better.

I also need to update it to explain that the vacfix is not a
cure-all, certain degenerate conditions cause it to perform as
bad if not worse than a traditional vacuum.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein - [alfred@freebsd.org]
Represent yourself, show up at BABUG http://www.babug.org/

  3. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Mike Castle <dalgoda@ix.netcom.com> — 2001-04-29T05:23:55Z

    On Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 04:33:42PM -0020, geustace@godzone.net.nz wrote:
> If the work that Alfred has done is as effective as he claims, then
> there must be a *REALLY* good reason why it isn't being included.

Isn't 7.1 in a code freeze?

That seems like a *REALLY* good reason not to include such a change at this
moment.

Nothing prevents YOU from using it, of course.

mrc
-- 
       Mike Castle       Life is like a clock:  You can work constantly
  dalgoda@ix.netcom.com  and be right all the time, or not work at all
www.netcom.com/~dalgoda/ and be right at least twice a day.  -- mrc
    We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.  -- Watchmen

  4. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Paul M Foster <paulf@quillandmouse.com> — 2001-04-29T16:31:13Z

    On Sat, Apr 28, 2001 at 10:22:53PM -0700, Alfred Perlstein wrote:

> * geustace@godzone.net.nz <geustace@godzone.net.nz> [010428 21:44] wrote:
> > I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
> > attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.
> 
> I'm assuming you refer to the updated page at:
> http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/
> 

I have to agree with this. Alfred's free to do what he likes. I don't
recall that he mentions whether this patch is Open Source. If it isn't,
then this is all moot. It can't be included in PostgreSQL because of
licensing issues. If it _is_ Open Source, then Alfred is free to charge
for it. _However_, he makes the threat of potential legal action if you
should broadly disseminate a previously downloaded copy of the patch.
That's not only not Open Source, it's ANTI- Open Source. On that basis
alone, I would be averse to including it in PostgreSQL. The coercion
issue is secondary and childish.

Paul

  5. Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Glen Eustace <geustace@godzone.net.nz> — 2001-04-29T16:53:42Z

    I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.

If the work that Alfred has done is as effective as he claims, then
there must be a *REALLY* good reason why it isn't being included.

I don't want to start any form of war....
But as a user I'd be interested to know why such a patch would appear
to be unacceptable.

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Glen Eustace,
GodZone Internet Services, a division of AGRE Enterprises Ltd.,
P.O. Box 8020, Palmerston North, New Zealand 5301
Ph/Fax: +64 6 357 8168, Mob: +64 21 424 015

  6. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net> — 2001-04-29T19:46:19Z

    * Paul M Foster <paulf@quillandmouse.com> [010429 10:35] wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 28, 2001 at 10:22:53PM -0700, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
> 
> > * geustace@godzone.net.nz <geustace@godzone.net.nz> [010428 21:44] wrote:
> > > I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
> > > attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.
> > 
> > I'm assuming you refer to the updated page at:
> > http://people.freebsd.org/~alfred/vacfix/
> > 
> 
> I have to agree with this. Alfred's free to do what he likes. I don't
> recall that he mentions whether this patch is Open Source.

It's amazing that someone with your writing skills is so lacking
in reading comprehension.

The patch is free for inclusion in Postgresql source code, the
patch is NOT free to end users unless laudered through the Postgresql
source tree.

> If it isn't,
> then this is all moot. It can't be included in PostgreSQL because of
> licensing issues. If it _is_ Open Source, then Alfred is free to charge
> for it. _However_, he makes the threat of potential legal action if you
> should broadly disseminate a previously downloaded copy of the patch.

That has been removed, I will not bother doing so and I'm probably
not within my rights to do so, there now you have it, an admittion
that I believe I'm not within my rights to own this code as it has
been previously released.  I do with you'd read on before deciding
the mirror the damn thing every which place.

> That's not only not Open Source, it's ANTI- Open Source. On that basis
> alone, I would be averse to including it in PostgreSQL. The coercion
> issue is secondary and childish.

You're entitled to your opinions no matter how misformed and foolish
they are.

There is no coercion involved.

I also don't think it helps the project for me to be giving Joe
End User patches that can speed up vacuum that basically discourage
him from using the latest and greatest version, there's a few
problems in the 7.0.3 tree that are fixed in 7.1.  7.1 needs
mainstream use.  And hey, who knows I may actually recoup my
investment that has me seemingly forever stuck with 7.0.3.  If someone
really need the patches they will just have to pay for them.

By not having these patches available for 7.1, large sites such as
my previous employer can not even consider testing it.  With gracious
help from the developers and a lot of work on our part we were able
to track down and fix several obscure bugs related to corruption
and crashes in 7.0.3, unfortunetly we can't deploy 7.1 so we don't
know what's lurking there.

Anyhow, I really shouldn't have bothered explaining this to someone
that thinks that open source == free beer.  I guess it was really for
the rest of the people that think I'm being a jerk.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein - [alfred@freebsd.org]
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using "1970s technology,"
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

  7. Re: Re: On the _need_ to vacuum...

    Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> — 2001-04-29T23:28:57Z

    [ Charset ISO-8859-1 unsupported, converting... ]
> I am rather staggered by a developer considering it necessary to
> attempt to cooerce the core development team into including a patch.
> 
> If the work that Alfred has done is as effective as he claims, then
> there must be a *REALLY* good reason why it isn't being included.

We have tried to get it applied to the main tree but the people needed
to merge the patch into 7.1 didn't have the time to get it merged.  I
expect 7.2 will either have the patch or will remove the need for the
patch.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
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