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Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:04:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Want to add to contrib.... xmldbx
From: "Mark Woodward" <pgsql@mohawksoft.com>
To: "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>
Cc: "Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby@pervasive.com>,
	"Andrew Dunstan" <andrew@dunslane.net>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
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> On Mon, 30 Jan 2006, Mark Woodward wrote:
>
>> It gets so frustrating sometimes, it isn't so black and white, there are
>> many levels of gray. The PostgreSQL project is trying so hard to be
>> neutral, that it is making itself irrelevant.
>
> We are making ourselves irrelevant because we encourage the use of
> PgFoundry vs including everything (and the kitchen sink) in our core
> distribution?

You know, like CPAN, BSD ports, and other sorts of things, I don't have a
problem with pgfountry, per se', but who but hackers knows what it is?
pgfoundry would be amazing if you called attention to it. I am reminded of
Douglas Adams, "I Eventually found it, in a disused lavatory in a locked
file cabinaet with a sign on it saying, 'beware of the leopod'" or
something like that.

On the home page, pgFoundry, is between "Mailing Lists" and "Techdocs,"
who's going to see it, and who would even know what "pgFoundry" means?
Only the very curious with spare time on their hands. In PostgreSQL's
download page, you do mention a few select projects under the heading
"Other Software"

Squirrelmail puts their "plugins" right next to download.
Drupal puts a "modules" tab right next to the project tab.


>
> That's like saying that Perl is makign itself irrelevant since it doesn't
> include all of CPAN in their distribution, or PHP cause they don't include
> all of the pear stuff, or ...

CPAN is amazing.

>
> If an extension is programmed properly, there is no reason why it can't be
> external to the core distribution, and the tools are provided to help
> ensure that they are programmed properly ... its not like it used to be,
> where you *had* to download the source tar ball in order to make use of
> the Makefile infrastructure ...

Yes, creating an extension has improved quite a bit, pg_config should
handle more of the standards options like --prefix, but it has improved
quite a bit.