Re: [PDO] PDO2 as a set of PECL extensions, rather than PHP core?

Actually, Ben, this is an option that we discussed quite at length, and 
one that I have been hoping someone in the community would bring up 
again.  There was some dissent among members about the core and the 
spec/API docs being non-CLA'd which is why the proposal is currently the 
way it is.  I know that various legal teams had concerns about PDO core 
not being under CLA, but if a case is made in the community for this, 
perhaps minds may change.

As I have stated in the past, it is my personal opinion that it is best 
to let the community discuss and resolve the issues of the CLA in an 
open matter and to support the end compromise/solution in whatever ways 
I (and MySQL) can.  There are cases for and against CLAs and now with 
various blog posts from Marco Tabini, Lukas, Bill Karwin, Derick, and 
others, the issues are now being more clearly and effectively outlined 
(versus the "NO WAY" reactions).  I have good hopes that the community 
can come to a timely resolution to the issues that will work for all 
parties involved.  Perhaps your solution (non-CLA core&spec, 
CLA-optioned drivers) is the solution which may best work, but only time 
and open discussions will tell.

Cheers,

jay

Ben Ramsey wrote:
> On 1/28/08 12:54 PM, Dan Scott wrote:
>> On 28/01/2008, Steph Fox <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Hi Dan,
>>>
>>>> Those non-CLA signing people could even change the code in core, too,
>>>> if they felt that it was warranted. They would be contributing to a
>>>> derivative work, not to PDO2 itself.
>>> That's where the plan falls down. It would be **symlinked**.
>>
>> But it doesn't have to be symlinked. That's just the way that things
>> are done currently, right? Code could just be continually copied and
>> merged from the PECL repository into core to maintain the core PDO's
>> derived state.
>>
>> Alternately, PDO could be pulled out of core. When you download and
>> install Perl, you don't get DBI - you have to get that separately
>> (well, maybe not on Windows, depending on the distributor's
>> package...). I'm pretty sure the same is true for Python (as there is
>> no core DBI package in Python, just db drivers that implement the DBI
>> interface). Does it really matter if PDO is part of the php-src CVS
>> directory or not?
>>
> 
> What if PDO2 was essentially an API for writing a DB driver (a la 
> pecl/pdo_user, though not providing the API at the userland level)? I 
> know it somewhat serves that function now, but PDO2 would be a better 
> API with better documentation. The PDO2 code would be in the core and 
> not under any kind of CLA. Then, the various database vendors could 
> develop drivers for PDO2 based on that API, and the code could live on 
> their sites or in PECL, depending on how they choose to license their 
> code. It would benefit them more, however, and allow them to better 
> compete against other database companies if they choose to open source 
> their PDO2 drivers and provide them to the community from PECL, so I 
> think there is a big incentive for them to do so.
> 
> Then again, maybe I'm over-simplifying things. :-)
> 
> -- 
> Ben Ramsey
> http://benramsey.com/
>