Unsupported 3rd-party solutions (Was: Few questions on postgresql (dblink, 2pc, clustering))

Jim Worke wrote:
> I don't mean to be rude or anything, but having 3rd-party solution is a scary
> option for a business enterprise. I know that they're stable and all, but if
> it's not supported by PostgreSQL themselves (i.e. included in PostgreSQL as a
> whole package), we're afraid that we have to change our code/design in case
> the product has stopped progress.
>
> For example, pgcluster's patch is for PostgreSQL 7.3.6. It's not in sync with
> PostgreSQL's current version (I'm not blaming the guy... He's created a very
> good solution and I'm thankful for that). It's just that for my company (and
> I guess many other companies too), it's more appealing to have a database
> solution that comes in a package.
>
Those are very interesting remarks. I'm the author of PL/Java, a module
that also could be thought of as "not supported by PostgreSQL
themselves", and I've made the same reflection as you have. It would be
beneficial to have some organisational entity within Postgres where this
issue could be addressed (i.e. packaging/synchronization and supported
configurations). I think it could give a real boost to PostgreSQL as such.

Sure, an open source community does not make support commitments. But
the PostgreSQL community is large and that creates (a sense of) safety
and continuity. This sense is not automatically transferred to the
"3rd-party solutions".

From a users perspective and perhaps especially from the decision
makers perspective, the fact that you have to download various modules
from gborg etc. is indeed scary. Who will support your chosen solution a
year from now? IMHO, if PosgreSQL is aiming for larger business
acceptance, this has to be resolved. Contributors like myself must be
given the opportunity to get things "verified" and checked in as
"supported". It would do PostgreSQL an awful lot of good if there where
supported configurations including replication, server side language
support (Perl, Tcl, Java, etc.), JDBC and ODCB drivers, and other things
that you'd normally find in commercial enterprise solutions.

Regards,

Thomas Hallgren