[unixODBC-dev] text driver disappeared from 2.2.13/14 ???

[Martin J. Evans]

Tom Lane wrote:
> Nick Gorham <nick.gorham at easysoft.com> writes:
>   
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>>     
>>> I hope this is not intentional ... I know I've got users that will
>>> be unhappy if the text driver disappears from Fedora.
>>>       
>
>   
>> TBH, based on the lasck of feedback I get, I assumed that no one used 
>> it. Seems I was wrong.
>>     
>
> Well, Red Hat's gotten bug reports on it from paying customers, eg
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=162676
> so *somebody* out there is using it.
>
> To my mind the text driver is useful because it allows testing unixODBC
> without any dependency on any external database solution; though I grant
> it might be too simplistic to be good for very much in that line.
>
>   
>> Its all still in the CVS, so can be packaged up on its own.
>>     
>
> That would be a feasible solution I guess.
>
> BTW, how come you removed the mysql driver as obsolete (which it was)
> and kept the postgres driver (which is too)?  For Fedora/RHEL I'd prefer
> to be shipping just the separately maintained mysql and postgres
> drivers.
>
> 			regards, tom lane
>   
If you, or more specifically Redhat, has a bug reported in open source 
software it is in your interest once you have verified the bug to also 
notify the maintainer of the open source package and if you fix the bug 
to feed that back also. If you/Redhat are not monitoring the lists for 
the open source package then I suggest someone at Redhat provides Nick 
with a contact email address then at least when a new release is about 
to be released you can have the chance to peruse the changes beforehand. 
I would also imagine Redhat's "paying customers" would want it to stay 
abreast of changes and developments in open source packages it is 
selling support for.

The issue of removing drivers from the driver manager was briefly 
discussed on the development list and I would guess that other than the 
text driver the split would benefit linux distributors. Some grief has 
been caused by packaging drivers with unixODBC which are really 
maintained in a different source code control systems. Perhaps the 
differentiation between them should in deed be that - drivers where the 
definitive source is unixODBC can be distributed with unixODBC and those 
where the source is held elsewhere should be distributed from their 
primary source.

Martin