PostgreSQL Portable Runtime (was Re: [GENERAL] Future of PostgreSQL)

Hi,

one of the important factors that contributed to the popularity and success of
Apache, Perl, Tcl/Tk etc. was their platform independence. I'm big fan of Unix (and
even bigger of Postgres ;-), but BeOS, MacOS X, even Win2000 all look quite
interesting too and I don't want to tie myself to just one platform. More platforms
will bring in more users, more testers and more hackers and thus much better
Postgres (hopefully).

Bruce M. says Postgres depends so much on Unix that to port it would be about as
hard as port the whole Unix kernel. So here's the idea for the next major release:
how about some kind of 'PostgrSQL Portable Rutime' that would isolate system
dependent stuff and make PostgreSQL reasonably portable? Apache has its 'Apache
Portable Runtime', so has Netscape/Mozilla and while they're clearly very different
applications, I believe it's not impossible.

I understand this would be a LOT of work and most Postgres developers might not be
immediately attracted, but look at it this way: Postgres is currently unique among
db servers with its features, robustness, performance and nice licence, but what if
mSQL/MySQL finally add transactions and other features and/or free their licence? Or
one of the big guys, say IBM, get enlightened/desperade enough to release source?
Suddenly there would be a strong competitor to Postgres and being crossplatform
would give them a great advantage.

I'm web developer and with Apache and Perl (and mod_perl), I'm quite happy. Now that
Mozilla M12 is quite usable I can develop on almost any platform I want... but I
want Postgres and it brings me back to Unix with its beautifull UI, great multimedia
support and Age of Empires running under Wine. *sigh*

- Robert

P.S. Cygwin is definitely one of the options, but RedHat/Cygnus's plans are not very
clear at this point and few months ago there were even some rumors about plans for
'more restrictive licence' for cygwin - and anyway, cygwin wouldn't be of any help
to Mac/BeOS/VAX/mainframe people.