Re: Microsoft releses Services for Unix

Claudio Natoli <claudio(dot)natoli(at)memetrics(dot)com> writes:
> * Users already have a postgres solution for Win32. It is called Cygwin w/
> cygipc. Sure, it is not the most stable solution, but, IMHO, that's not what
> prevents people from using it; it is the need to install yet-another bit of
> software to support Postgres.

Well, the $64 questions that have not been answered are what are the
license terms and redistribution terms for SFU? If we can bundle the
needed parts of SFU into a binary distribution of Postgres, then there
is no need for users to be aware it is in there. If we can't, then
I agree that a port based on it would be about as hard to sell as the
Cygwin port. (Yeah, maybe it'd be more stable and faster, but it'd not
be perceived as a native port.)

Given the previous comments about Microsoft's goals in giving this away,
one would think they'd allow it to be bundled in distributions of free
software. But who knows ...

> * I don't buy the argument that moving to SFU will remove a lot of specific
> Win32 code. On what evidence is this based on? [personally, I think it'd
> only get worse, again, based on little evidence]. Seems to me the bulk of
> the Win32 specific code lies with fork/exec, which (unless I'm terribly
> mistaken) won't be alleviated by SFU.

If SFU doesn't provide a reasonable fork() emulation then it's no help,
agreed. But again, from what I understand of Microsoft's goals, I'd
think they'd have to provide a good fork(). I think Postgres is a
perfect poster child for the sort of app they want to make easy to port
to Windows.

regards, tom lane