[Pkg-postgresql-public] postgresql 8.2 packaging

[Markus Wanner]

Hello Paul,

Paul E Condon wrote:
> Debian packages PostgreSQL
> for the convenience of members of the Debian community, not as a
> service to the (larger?) PostgreSQL community.

Sure.

I don't know if I may call myself a member of the Debian community
according to whatever policy. But as a user of Debian, let me tell you
that I utterly miss the service of having up to date Postgres versions
8.1.x and 8.2.x for my Debian system.

The Postgres development team has a pretty good track record for
providing stable bug- and security fix releases for all their major
versions, each of which is normally supported for quite a long time
(Postgres 7.4.0 has been released more than 5 years ago, the latest
bugfix release 7.4.24 is just a month old). Debian does its users (and
itself) a disservice by not forwarding these.

With the repository I'm providing, I'm (partly) filling that gap and
offer up to date packages ready to use for Debian etch and lenny users.
With that I'm offering my *help*.

> As a member of the Debian
> community, you can argue your case, but you cannot make Debian do
> something that it clearly cannot do, namely enforce Debian rules on
> PostgreSQL. Nor are you able to win your case in Debian discussions,
> and get Debian to change its support one version only rule. 

Can you point me to that rule? I remember having received apache (1.3.x)
and apache2 (2.0.x) from the same Debian repository. And today, I can
install tomcat5 as well as tomcat5.5 (and now even tomcat6). In what way
are Tomcat major versions different from Postgres major versions?

> To me, there is not a pressing reason for Debian to change on this
> issue. There is a big, big world out there. There is plenty of
> opportunity for others to step in, and do an Ubuntu for PostreSQL.

I already offer such packages. However, I don't think that's a reason
for yet another distribution.

> To me, the current policy works. It provides a clear boundary to what
> a developer commits to when he/she adopts a package. Without this
> policy the developer could look forward to a constant struggle trying
> to placate both progressives and conservatives. I would not want that.

You are forgetting the end user here. It might be a nice rule for the
developer and the Debian advocate, but it just simply doesn't work for
the end user, as I've had to learn the hard way. How often did you go
through such a major version upgrade of a productive Postgres database
system? How many of those upgrades involved non-trivial amounts of data
and/or application specific code, that's equally hard to migrate?

Also note that I'm maintaining these packages because it's far less work
for me than upgrading my production servers between major releases. And
I'm offering them for Debian or everybody else, because I'm simply a
nice guy ;-)

Regards

Markus Wanner