maria-developers team mailing list archive

[Michael Widenius <monty@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

>>>>> "Arjen" == Arjen Lentz <arjen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Arjen> Hi all, fellow Maria captains in particular (but naturally anybody  
Arjen> here can comment)

Arjen> We'd like to include the plugin for OQGRAPH engine in the 5.1 packages  
Arjen> we're just about to build.
Arjen> It would not be pulled in like the xtradb/pbxt engines, but be  
Arjen> compiled separately and not loaded in by default (people will have to  
Arjen> do INSTALL PLUGIN) so that as long as it's not loaded, it can have no  
Arjen> influence on the running of mysqld.

Arjen> The rationale is this.
Arjen>  From the experience with PBXT, people really want/need binaries/ 
Arjen> packages before they will try things. If 5.1 binaries had had PBXT  
Arjen> plugin sitting there, lots more people would have tried it earlier,  
Arjen> filed bugreports and feedback, and Paul would have been where he is  
Arjen> now much quicker. With MariaDB pulling it in it's ok now, but it's  
Arjen> just a darn waste and pity of the earlier time.

Arjen> Since 5.1's plugin infrastructure still requires a plugin to be  
Arjen> compiled against close to exact the original mysqld source, the only  
Arjen> way to ensure that is to compile them from the same source at the same  
Arjen> time, next to eachother.
Arjen> So that's what I'm proposing.

Arjen> Nonsense like the feature preview builds that Sun/MySQL did just make  
Arjen> no sense in the real world, people can't use that. So while sticking  
Arjen> new plugins in a future version like 5.2 appears sensible, it doesn't  
Arjen> actually help in getting the code out there and used which is of  
Arjen> course the only way to get feedback and bugreports. The ability to  
Arjen> have plugins distributed but not loaded is the key here, it allows us  
Arjen> to get stuff out and those who want to try it can, without  
Arjen> destabilising anything for those who don't.

>From my point of view, I think it's ok that we add 'alpha' storage
engines, that are not loaded by default, to the MariaDB tree.

In my view, an engine that is just distributed with MariaDB will
not downgrade the overall quality of MariaDB itself.

I would however like to suggest that when we impose the following
restrictions to any engine code that are to be distributed with
MariaDB:

- The engine should be 'useful for a large number of people'.
- The engine will not cause any delays (except build & test run times)
  when doing MariaDB releases.
- The code needs to compile without any warnings or errors.
- The code should work on all platforms.
- Any hard bugs (server crashes or security issues) should be solved
  ASAP (preferably within 1 week)
- Any reasonable-to-fix bugs should be solved promptly (within 2 weeks
  or before next MariaDB release)
- There should be reasonable tests for the engine to ensure that it works.

If OQGRAPH satisfies the above requirements (or Arjen promises that all
issues will be taken care of), I am ok to add it to MariaDB 5.1

Comments?

Regards,
Monty

PS: Yes, I know that this means we should try to get sphinx into
    MariaDB 5.1 too ASAP.