Forum OpenACS Development: Re: OACS 6 and beyond

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3: Re: OACS 6 and beyond (response to 1)
Posted by Mario Aguado on

Hi, I don't understand because you say the following thing: Now that Oracle is officially being dropped. Can you help me please?. Thanks in advance.

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4: Re: Re: OACS 6 and beyond (response to 3)
Posted by Malte Sussdorff on
OpenACS 6, which is due next year, will not support Oracle any more. We will not delete the Oracle code, but the OpenACS core will most likely not work on Oracle out of the box as PostgreSQL changes have not made their way into the Oracle code.
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Posted by Ciaran De Buitlear on
Are you happy that there is a concensus among Openacs users that Oracle should be dropped? I, for one, think it's a backward step.
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Posted by Simon at TCB on
I share this concern. I've not been that in touch with the community recently, but this comes as a surprise.

What is the driver for this? Technical? Lack of support?

I agree. It would be a giant step backwards.

Looking through recent posts on this topic can I suggest a compromise?

The *core* should continue to support oracle. The packages (with the exception of perhaps a choice few) don't have to.

My thinking here is that future Oracle users are most likely to want to use the OpenACS as platform for building on i.e. most of the packages are pretty irrelevant (and frankly are rarely good enough for likely enterprise users)

I do understand that perhaps the Oracle community is less active here. But without Oracle ACS is pretty much useless to me. We use it for things like test management on oracle databases... there isn't much call for postgres in the enterprise world.

Perhaps the Oracle community is quiet because the parts they use (the core) are pretty stable. So, you have a good stable, enterprise core and you want to drop it? Is that not throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

I've always been of the opinion that its the core that is key to OpenAcs. The packages are just sugar on top, often more work than their worth.

Perhaps we shouldn't be measuring this in terms of numbers of users. I'm trying to put this politely, but are 5 hobbyists the equivalent of 1 enterprise user? Is sheer numbers alone a fair measure? Frankly if you're using it for something quite trivial its a bit of a hammer to crack a nut anyway...

Are there large numbers of bugs or oracle maintenance issues in the core? Is it *really* that much work to maintain oracle for the aspect?

Oh well, if its going I guess its going... nice while it lasted ;) Shame really, still my favourite bit of tech :)

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Posted by Malte Sussdorff on
I can only tell for myself that I have a hard time providing changes to core packages due to the fact that I don't have the time to test the changes on Oracle. I think a couple of people feel the same.

To my knowledge though, an official TIP on that matter is still required, so maybe my wording was a little bit strong and premature. But this seems the direction in which we are steering.

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12: Re: OACS 6 and beyond (response to 4)
Posted by Andrew Piskorski on
[sarcasm mode on]

And let me say that as an OpenACS on Oracle user, I so deeply appreciate the full and open discussion which led to this decision. How appropriate that the very first time I ever heard "OpenACS 6" mentioned at all in this, the public forum of record, occurred when Malte dropped this announcement out of the blue. It's so good to see transparent, accountable Open Source governance at work. Just gives me that warm fuzzy feeling all over.

[sarcasm mode off]

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Posted by Patrick Giagnocavo on
Andrew, did you just volunteer yourself to be the "Oracle go-to guy" on OpenACS 6?

I mean, you are being paid by your company to develop on OpenACS/Oracle, is that correct?

Surely it is only in your best interest to contribute some time to the community to see this continue.

And for that matter, why not jump in right away to fix or port any/all the Postgres-only packages to work on Oracle?

I have not contributed code, but then again, I am not complaining about what is supported and what is not.

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Posted by Andrew Piskorski on
Patrick, did you see me volunteer for anything? No you didn't, which you knew perfectly well - you're being disingenuous.

No, as I've stated previously elsewhere, I've hardly done any work using OpenACS in years. Web pages are perhaps 5% of my job at most. (Which is part of why the code I have contributed has been very modest, and it's been a long time since I did even that.)

But more importantly, that's all completely irrelevant.

The point is that the very existence of this thread is an illustration in slap-dash, half-assed, lackadaisical governance - not to mention leadership.

A competent Open Source software leader does not suddenly announce, as if after the fact, that the project is dropping all Oracle support, based on some sort of behind-closed-doors discussion and decision making that no one else in the community has ever heard of, and which is entirely absent from the public record.

Yes, PostgreSQL users have been whining about of having to "support" Oracle for years. Fine, but also largely irrelevant.

What a competent leader does, is come out of his private OCT meeting and say something along the lines of:

As many of you know, over the last several years we've had lots of complaints from PostgreSQL developers about the burden of porting to and testing their changes on Oracle, and we feel that these complaints are both justified and serious. Worse, the number of Oracle users stepping up to the plate to fund support and development just hasn't been enough to compensate for the added effort of supporting two RDBMSs.

Therefore, our draft plan - which will be posted to the TIP forum shortly, for further discussion and eventually a formal vote - is basically this:

If we're to keep Oracle support in the next major version of OpenACS, the following things must each happen within the next N months:

  1. X dollars of new funding specifically targetted to ongoing Oracle maintenance.

  2. Y additional developers demonstrating consistent active interest and support for Oracle.

  3. [Etc., whatever. I think you get the idea.]

If you want solid, robust support for OpenACS on Oracle, now is the time - step forward, and please put your money where your mouth is, because we need it.

Something like that, damn it. Not bullshit along the lines of, "Oh by the way, now that we've suddenly decided to completely drop Oracle support, after merely griping about it for years..."

In other words, if you feel an ultimatum is warranted, then issue a real ultimatum, don't just be lazy! You are the leaders of OpenACS - and for good reason - not me. So please act like leaders! Figure out what is needed for solid support of both Oracle and PostgreSQL, state those needs clearly, set a deadline, and state what the fallback plan and consequences are if those needs are not met.

Then at least no one can complain that you didn't try to keep Oracle support in the toolkit...

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Posted by Don Baccus on
Yes, PostgreSQL users have been whining about of having to "support" Oracle for years. Fine, but also largely irrelevant.
It stops being irrelevant the day I stop saying "someday I will no longer support Oracle for you" and start saying "as of now I will no longer support Oracle for you". Pissing me off isn't going to do much to encourage me to support your platform for free in the future. Competent FOLLOWERS figure that out. Oh, financial support HAS been asked for, at the last .LRN conference, which is where the only Oracle users with money congegrate. One university has stepped forward to help out with testing and bug-fixing for .LRN 2.2 but it is not at all clear that THEY'LL be using Oracle a year from now, either...
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Posted by Don Baccus on
[fuck you mode on]
We've been talking about it openly for about two years now.

If you were an active participant in the community you'd know that.

If more Oracle users were active participants in the community and in the support and development of the Oracle code base we wouldn't be having this discussion.

As it is there's not a single Oracle user active enough to get themselves elected on the OCT.
[fuck you mode off]