Re: add server include files to default installation?

Dear Tom,

> > Agreed. If we are pushing things out, it seems it is our duty to make
> > it easy for outside things to integrate and build properly.
>
> It does not thereby follow that we should try to merge devel and base
> packages (to express it in RPM terms).

They are not necessarily merged, and it is quite easy to separate them
from the rpm maintainer point of view if s?he desire to do so. This is
already done for apache for instance, as the default installation includes
all build utilities. There is no problem separate build utils, or even to
make it easier than it is already if you want.

> Compiling extension packages is not and probably never will be something
> that the average user does, and there's no reason to burden him with the
> disk footprint to support something he's not gonna do.

We're arguing about the public which does compile postgresql. Guys or
girls that downloaded the source, configure and so. That is not the
average user indeed, but occasional sysadmins like me, and I like my life
to be easier. I'm ready to pay 0.002 EUR of disk space for that,
especially as the 0.002 EUR (about $0.002 for you) are those of my
employer;-)

We can discuss whether that price is too high for the average sysadmin,
but at the cost of my time and yours, I think we spent quite a lot of
money arguing about this issue that would pay for all the disk space in
the world that is needed;-)

> We do need to work out what our story is for compiling extensions
> without the original source/build trees.

We agree;-) I've made suggestions and send a "proof of concept patch"
which is waiting for your comments and better ideas. I'm not sure it is
the best ever possible way to allow extensions, but it works and it is
reasonnable enough IMHO, so it is at least a base for discussion.

> But the needed files should be an install option, not the default.

The previous point can be solved independetly of this issue, as you
pointed out. Let's begin with that.

--
Fabien Coelho - coelho(at)cri(dot)ensmp(dot)fr