From:	Lukas Kahwe Smith	Date:	Thu Feb 14 15:19:17 2008
Subject:	Re: [PDO] [RFC] An Idea for PDO 2

On 14.02.2008, at 23:12, Christopher Jones wrote:

>
>
> Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> >> What other extensions have been written using an external (to PHP)
> >> specification?
> >
> > You are missing the point here. A document that all drivers are  
> expected
> > to follow needs to be CLA free or it has no chance of being  
> accepted at
> > php.net. After all SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird and friends  
> would
> > also be expected to follow those specs.
>
> MySQL have stated that they will follow what the PHP community
> accepts, whether or not that includes a CLA.
>
> What I was questioning was whether all current PECL extensions
> implement PHP-only specifications.  Since we already have extensions
> that implement externally established specifications (e.g. XML-RPC),
> then what is special about PDO (assuming no shared core PDO extension)
> that would require the spec to be CLA-free?
>
> I'm just trying to explore the options here.

Because there is no external established specification for database  
which would be worthwhile following. Following the SOAP spec increases  
the value of PHP, even if we think we could come up with a better SOAP  
spec. For databases there is no such thing and if something like this  
is written for PHP, then we would naturally expect all people to be  
able to participate without legal restrictions.

Now to get back to my other email. If Oracle/IBM/Microsoft/Sun get  
together to write a database API specification for scripting  
languages, submit this to some standards body, get it accepted and  
this standard is convincing for us (by either becoming so ubiquitous  
that its simply makes sense for us to follow .. or just because its  
really good .. or both), then we might decide to follow that spec,  
even if its authored under a CLA.

So again, get to work, show us the code and things will start moving.

regards,
Lukas