[Info-vax] PostgreSQL (Re: open source OpenVMS (Re: Oracle-RDB seminar notes))

[BillPedersen]

On Thursday, April 4, 2013 7:21:21 PM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
> BillPedersen wrote:
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> > Or you can get involved with the VMS-Ports SourceForge Project which is coordinating access between several open source porting efforts and HP OpenVMS Engineering.  Mark Berryman is involved with that effort and we are looking to expand our numbers so we can address more issue.
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> > 
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> > The VMS-Ports Project also supports a bug submission process on SourceForge and would be the perfect place to coordinate the beta of PostgreSQL as well as other database efforts and open source porting efforts.
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> > 
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> > We are having one of our conference calls tonight, 23:00 EDT.  If you are interested please contact me for details.
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> > 
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> > Bill.
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> 
> 
> Ok, I'll bite on this lure ....
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> I don't know why, but I have "blind spots".  Things that I just don't 
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> seem able to wrap my mind around.
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> As an example, transfer vectors for RTLs on VAX.  Made perfect sense to 
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> me.  Used them in the RTLs I produced.
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> Now for Alpha.  No more transfer vectors.  Something done in the linker. 
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>   I've had people tell me the Alpha method is much easier.  I just don't 
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> "get it".  To this day, I need to hire help to do such things.
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> 
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> The same thing happens with C.  I don't know why.  I've tried.  It just 
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> doesn't make sense to me.  I'm not going to blame the language.  I've 
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> never been able to acquire another language besides English either.  I 
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> know I have these problems.  I'm the problem.  Doesn't make it any less 
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> of a problem.
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> 
> I'm guessing that just about everything you're doing is based on C.  Am 
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> I correct?  If so, then I wouldn't be much help.

Actually, we do not care what language you use or even if you use a language.  If you have a favorite open source application written in any language we would be happy to help you and have your involvement.

We can also use people interested in helping spread the word, run tests, manage the VMS-Ports site.  Write wiki articles.  Many, many tasks besides programming and porting.

Yes, some of the major support efforts are in C and the CRTL is a major focus of issues.  Much of the open source software is written in C.  But there are also open source applications written in Fortran, COBOL, Pascal and other languages. But knowledge of C is not required.

As far as transfer vectors they are alive and well and important to allow upgrades of sharable libraries to be done without impacting the executables calling them.  Recent work done as a part of some porting work has made the transfer vector mechanism nearly identical across all three architectures of OpenVMS.

Bill.