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From: Jonathan S. Katz <[email protected]>
To: Daniel Gustafsson <[email protected]>
Cc: Dave Page <[email protected]>
Cc: REIX, Tony <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Add AIX on the PostgreSQL Download page
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2021 13:52:09 -0400
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <VI1PR02MB6397D6C5A73ACE5247BB655B86D39@VI1PR02MB6397.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com>
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	<[email protected]>
	<CA+OCxoxTsqZpU5Vt4SEULpzKHpPCX_fbb2PDQ0kc+K2HN5hQNA@mail.gmail.com>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>

On 9/7/21 12:21 PM, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
>> On 7 Sep 2021, at 17:07, Jonathan S. Katz <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On 9/7/21 10:57 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 7, 2021 at 3:26 PM Daniel Gustafsson <[email protected]
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 7 Sep 2021, at 16:10, Jonathan S. Katz <[email protected]
>>>    <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>>>> I'd be more open to this if the packages themselves were hosted on
>>>> community infrastructure and were consistent with the rest of the
>>>> packaging projects.
>>>
>>>    That seems a high bar to cross given that we don’t host macOS,
>>>    Windows and the
>>>    BSD’s today but link to those.
>>>
>>> I agree.
>>
>> It doesn't mean we need to continue to exacerbate the situation by
>> linking to downloads that we have little control over.
>>
>> For example, what happens when the external downloads are unavailable?
>> We had a recent incident where this exact scenario happened. There are
>> now some reporting mechanisms in place to handle that scenario, but
>> ultimately it comes back to "PostgreSQL is unavailable for download."
> 
> That is an argument against any outbound links though.  Not having the
> information in the first place doesn’t seem to make PostgreSQL more available
> than the risk of an intermittent 404.

I'm not against having outbound links -- in fact I help moderate quite a
few of those that we host on .org, and I'm glad we do so.

Downloads are different -- they are often one's first impression of
PostgreSQL, and they are a critical piece of the user experience, i.e.
how one actually accesses PostgreSQL.

This is why I continuously recommend that we try to host them on our own
infrastructure, so that way we have maximum control over this experience.

> I don’t have strong feelings wrt AIX, nor insights into the current proposal,
> but limiting the offering based on what has been effectively grandfathered in
> based on fears about future shortcomings in network availability doesn’t seem
> to improve user friendliness.

Network availability is only one aspect of this. There's the actual
package availability (as you pointed out with Fink -- and I'm pretty
sure Dave & I had extensively discussed this in the past).

>  Having the packages on offer in the first place,
> as discussed downthread, is another matter though and a very real one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Tony + ATOS/Bull are offering to
support the AIX packages for PostgreSQL. I think it's very generous. I
know secondhand the pain it takes to maintain and build packages, and
I'm appreciative of anyone who wants to do so for PostgreSQL.

However, my point is that the packages should ultimately be hosted on
community infrastructure.

Thanks,

Jonathan



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