Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Email to Brian Behlendorf

Author:Grant Rauscher
Posted:4/25/2000; 10:50:55 PM
Topic:Email to Brian Behlendorf
Msg #:16689 (In response to 16601)
Prev/Next:16688 / 16690

Brian,

      Personally I relate to these reactions and positions on software use & development strongly – for a fair many of the points you bring up, I use "Frontier" in spite of their relevance. However, in most cases "Frontier" is more open-source, malleable, extensible, flexible than even some free software packages I've used... it's offered on a subscription basis, updates remotely and automatically, and allows developers to override built-in functions easily.

      Regardless, the object database / distributed dynamic server combo is a beast worth exploring. Furthermore, I suggest it's worth exploring in any forms it can be found, particularly because it's a rare beast in the otherwise prolific realm of web server software. For example, I went to a PERL users group meeting tonight to hear a presentation on yet another pre-processor that uses flat files and RDBs as data sources, but not exactly taking ODBs into consideration. Not that the presentation was bad, but the monotony of it all is maddening... and this one actually requires another session management system.

      There aren't that many distributed, dynamically scriptable object database servers out there, and that probably won't change overnight. You, Apache, and everyone who uses it will benefit from working with, upon, underneath, and around object databases (not to mention everyone who uses an ODB and everyone left over). Don't react to my words one way or the other – please prove it to yourself, and share that position if you're so inclined.

      Maybe the question wasn't presented to you succinctly, and I may only exacerbate that, but what I'm getting from your response is that you either aren't aware or aren't enamored with the class of software "Frontier" represents, and how that class relates to the static web server. The "Frontier" community would likely rest easier knowing which, and perhaps even work better toward achieving its goals based on your position.

      In making a consideration of software classification, I find it's helpful to ignore all attributes associated with the software other than function. After all, any non-free software can be freed.



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