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:
- X dollars of new funding specifically targetted to ongoing Oracle
maintenance.
- Y additional developers demonstrating consistent active interest
and support for Oracle.
- [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...
