FreeTDS Development Group

[Darryl Friesen <Darryl.Friesen AT usask.ca>]

Much of what I wanted to say has already been said by others, so I'll keep
this short.

> make install

> Usually I end up having to su to root before this has any hope of
> working and that is not mentioned in any of the install guides that I
> have seen or read that are part of the distribution at
> http://www.freetds.org/download.html

That just goes without saying.  What unix software packages _can_ you
install without being root?  Even most binary distributions require you be
root before you can install them.  You mention having the Sybase java stuff;
surely you must have been root to install that as well?

> For me and the organizations I contract at this sort of thing is
> precisely why they refuse to use any freeware for ANY systems in the
> company.
> No linux, no gcc, nothing. It's too large an effort to try and rely
> on freeware without any assurances that it really will work, and they
> don't pay me to make these things work; they pay me to build and
> improve the systems that use these sorts of components. So we use
> Sybase, Oracle, Solaris, etc. Things that already ship with official
> support from these vendors. And they pay the huge license fees and
> annual support contracts because they can feel confident that if/when
> something goes wrong or can't make work they have a vendor whom they
> can pressure to get people on site and fix it.

If the importance lay on having a system that works, with commercial
software and a support phone number to call, then my suggestion would be to
replace your OS X machine with a Sun, Alpha or IBM and use the Sybase
software instead of FreeTDS.  At least until "real" Sybase versions are
available for OS X.

Let me also point out the version number 0.52.  _0_ .52 implying to me that
this software is still considered pre-release and expected to have bugs,
missing features, or otherwise require some improvement.  If this was not
the case it would have a 1.x version number.

> Personally, I think the best way to package this is to look at it
> from the end consumers point of view. The person who, like me, really
> wants to use it (and is perhaps willing to pay for the privilege to
> do so) and perhaps doesn't want to recompile it.

As someone already mentioned, I don't think that accurately describes
FreeTDS's target group;  the FreeTDS "end consumer" of FreeTDS is likely the
systems administrator, who has been asked by the DB manager or programmer,
to install this software so he can implement some sort of database client
system.

>I suspect that a huge number of current users already have binaries
>that, packaged properly, could be redistributed at that level

True.  And if you look at the major freeware/open source products, most of
the binaries do _not_ come from the developers (you won't find many
precompiled versions of GNU software from the GNU people themselves; they're
almost entirely contributed by users).

Perhaps some disk space could be set aside on the FreeTDS server (or
sourceforge?) for user contributed binaries.  I've got one for Digital Unix
4.0 I'd be willing to package up.


- Darryl

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  Darryl Friesen, B.Sc., Programmer/Analyst    Darryl.Friesen AT usask.ca
  Education & Research Technology Services,     http://gollum.usask.ca/
  Department of Computing Services,
  University of Saskatchewan
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  "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes"