[Oledb-dev] My health and a new list

[Arvo]

Hello Shachar,

> First of all, something great is happening on this list. It seems that
> publicly discussing the actual code internals has triggered people that
> hitherto did not actively participate to begin asking questions about
> the code, suggesting changes, and now even sending patches. I think it
> is a great step forward, especially considering that neither I nor
> Lingnu are likely to be able to do any of our own development any time soon.

I agree absolutely. Like I wrote some days ago, total inactivity in list just makes potential developers (like myself) feel that project is dead and nobody has any interest - I'm happy to say that apparently this feeling was wrong.

> About a month ago I was diagnosed with a type of Cancer called "Hodgkin's disease". It is considered a very cureable cancer, and my prognosis in particular is very good.

One bad news and one good news. Focusing to the good one :)

> If you sent an email to the list and got no reply, please accept my appologies.

Don't worry. Health is much more important than any kind of software problem.


> On a totally different (and much happier) topic, it seems to be the case
> that there is a (relative) lot of movement of subscribers  away from the
> list. I believe this has something to do with the fact that some of the
> subscribers are not interested in the internals of PgOleDb development,
> and are only interested in the client facing aspects of the project
> (installation, use, etc.). My question, therefor, is this. Do the list
> subscribers think it's time to open a seperate "users" list, in addition
> to the "devel" list.

I think this "movement away" is more related to mailing lists general unpopularity. I know that serious opensource development uses mailing lists heavily, but casual users and commercial developers (including myself) do not like mailing lists so much. Mailing lists are some kind of archaic rudiment from text-based not-so-internet-connected unix era - currently we (most of us) live in graphical web-connected world. Do you like  that or not - oledb drivers are used only in windows environment, so are driver users and most developers windows-centric people.

Much better solution for most users would be web forum (with very simple registration for posting, if this is needed at all). Instant access to all content, forum search, possibility to skip unrelated information, stickies for installing, compiling, faq-s, 24/7 forum access from any location, possibility to just give link to any interested person - that would be home of pgoledb development.

For example take a look at eMule forum (http://forum.emule-project.net/) (I've participated there actively, mostly support and some bugfixes) - this is real home for opensource software project, including support, development, general discussion etc. And  no one besides actual dev team has access to CVS - but anyone can suggest patches - sounds familiar? :)

Of course, someone needs to administer such forum; it needs hosted somewhere and so on. I don't know, does pgfoundry host forums or not. I could apply for administering, if seriously needed.

What about creating second list for pgoledb users (in case when web forum idea doesn't find any backing), then I don't know. Who will post there? Who will answer there? How will be these lists related? (Forum does solve all such problems, BTW.) I think (not the first time) that separate list is not needed.

-- 
Best regards,
 Arvo                            mailto:arvox at hot.ee