Minutes of our last Bugzilla meeting (August 8, 2006)

[Benton, Kevin]

> Frédéric Buclin wrote:
> > * Oracle informed us that they were still interested in having Bugzilla
> > 3.0 working with an Oracle DB. They plan to assign two Oracle developers
> > on it.
> >
> > * Supporting Oracle means we need an Oracle installation on landfill
> > (for reviews and testing patches). But we need some Oracle patches to
> > install it on RHEL 4, and these patches are not free. justdave will have
> > a look if it's possible to get them anyway.

I would think that since Oracle is willing to commit two developers to it, that they'd be willing to give us what we need to make it work on RHEL 4.

> So I guess the question this raises is: are the Bugzilla developers as a
> group free software people or open source people? That is to say, do we
> do Bugzilla as Free/Open Source because we believe that's the way
> software should be ("free software"), or because pragmatically it's what
> works ("open source")?
>
> If we are free software people, why exactly are we helping a proprietary
> database vendor sell more copies of its product? After all, they won't
> even make their OS patches free software, thereby asking us to use
> non-free software to help them.
>
> Even if we are "open source" pragmatists, I don't think anyone's ever
> argued that Bugzilla _needs_ Oracle. The biggest Bugzilla in the world
> runs pretty well on MySQL, and I know some people who think PostgreSQL
> is even better. ;-)
> 
> Another pragmatic point: in the past, features which have been
> implemented but which none of the development team use have turned out
> to be maintenance albatrosses. Say Oracle get Bugzilla 3.0 working with
> their database, then the developers get reassigned. Then a few Bugzilla
> users start using the Oracle support. Who's responsible for keeping it
> working?
> 
> We got PostgreSQL support because core developers wanted to use
> Postgres. Are there any who want to use Oracle? (And why?)

It seems that having a poll on the bugzilla.org website would be appropriate here.  Are we chasing a needle in the haystack or would this be a significant part of our userbase?  It seems that the poll could look something like this:

What database(s) does your company use?
[_] DB2
[_] Microsoft SQL
[_] MySQL
[_] Oracle
[_] PostgreSQL
[_] Other [___________________________]

---
Kevin Benton
Perl/Bugzilla Developer/Administrator, Perforce SCM Administrator
AMD - ECSD Software Validation and Tools
 
The opinions stated in this communication do not necessarily reflect the view of Advanced Micro Devices and have not been reviewed by management.  This communication may contain sensitive and/or confidential and/or proprietary information.  Distribution of such information is strictly prohibited without prior consent of Advanced Micro Devices.  This communication is for the intended recipient(s) only.  If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender, then destroy any remaining copies of this communication.