Re: Long-time 7.4 contrib failure Mac OS X 10.3.8

Michael Glaesemann <grzm(at)myrealbox(dot)com> writes:
> Thanks for the explanation. Is making this change to the build farm
> machine's config worth doing? Is it more useful on the build farm to
> see what works, or to see what fails? I'm thinking the latter. It'd
> be nice to see green, but green for green's sake isn't the point.

True, but if we're writing off openssl-on-OSX-on-7.4 as "never will
happen", as I think we must, it's probably better to configure the
buildfarm to avoid the problem. Otherwise the failure may simply
mask breakages that we *would* like to know about. In particular,
we presently have no idea whether wallaroo would expose any other
contrib problems if it were able to get past building dblink;
and the fact that it's red and always has been red discourages
people from noticing if the failure changes to something else.

In general, I like build machines that usually are green. I've learned
to totally tune out failures from tuna and carp, for instance, because
they fail every couple of days due to local problems such as lack of
SHMMAX space. If they ever show a real problem, it's unlikely anyone
would notice for a long while --- ye old "cry wolf too much" problem.

regards, tom lane