From: L J Bayuk <ljb220@mindspring.com>
Message-Id: <200402160249.i1G2n3qo010057@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Need new project admin for unbundled Tcl interface libpgtcl?
To: pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:49:03 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <200402100148.i1A1msCE000407@mindspring.com> from "L J Bayuk" at
	Feb 09, 2004 08:48:54 PM
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I'm disappointed to see the responses to my offer to take over the Gborg
project libpgtcl. It hasn't been touched in over a year; I thought the two
admins were busy elsewhere and would be glad to turn it over to someone else.
Guess I was wrong.  I'm hearing that you want to stay in control of the
project, but I'm not hearing that you plan to continue working on it any
time soon. OK, then.

Brett, I started with pgtcl-1.4b3 from Gborg, plus the changes Karl put
into CVS in January 2003. I merged in changes from the PostgreSQL-7.4.1
libpgtcl (core), then made enough changes of my own that the diffs to
either Gborg or -core versions are now quite substantial. I appreciate the
offer to join your project, but would you even accept such a huge chunk of
changes in one update? Would you have time to review it? Would it sit in
CVS indefinitely?

Karl, I'm glad you're making use of it at your shop, but that doesn't mean
it is finished. Some people are uncomfortable with production use of "beta,
no manual, no recent activity" projects.  (Perhaps your shop skipped
over PostgreSQL-7.4 and went to 7.4.1, because pgtcl-1.4b3 wouldn't build on
7.4(beta, rc, or final) without changes. My bug report at
  http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgtcl/bugs/bugupdate.php?584
was ignored, but fortunately it was fixed at 7.4.1 incidental to pgtcl.)

Marc, I can confirm that NOT all changes to -core version are in the Gborg
version, because there have been no changes to the Gborg version since Jan
2003 and there were at least 3 bug fixes on the -core version since then.
(I can't imagine why Brett thinks nobody should have been allowed to apply
fixes to the core libpgtcl, given the lack of activity on the Gborg
version.) The fixes I know of, which I think Tom Lane made, are:
   (1) fix for leak of notifier channel data on close, or crash if freed
       [from me, 2003-01-07 on pgsql-interfaces];
   (2) pg_lo_read/pg_lo_write binary data corruption fix [from me,
       2003-10-26 on pgsql-bugs];
   (3) bad handling of negative return from lo_read in pg_lo_read [from Tom
       Lane, 2003-10-30 on pgsql-bugs]
There were also compiler warning suppression fixes for const changes in Tcl
8.4 headers.  But there is a lot more new stuff in Gborg which isn't in the
core. No, it's not that hard to apply the fixes to the Gborg version, but
somebody would have to actually do it, and I don't see anyone else willing
to do so. I know the goal was to remove libpgtcl from -core; is the PG
Group satisfied with the progress of the Gborg pgtcl project toward this goal?