[steering] Migration plan (was: Gonna start calling votes)

[Dean Mah]

On Sun, Jan 12, 2003 at 05:42:34PM -0800, .jeff wrote:
> dean,
>
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > From: Dean Mah
> >
> > > 3. Ditch Oracle (for which our license was never
> > >    satisfactorily confirmed by Dan, BTW) in favor
> > >    of MySQL or Postgres.
> >
> > Send this to desdev and have someone work on porting the
> > database.
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
>
> i'm going to keep saying this until people start listening:
>
> IT'S NOT AS SIMPLE AS MOVING THE DATA TO A DIFFERENT DATABASE AND CHANGING
> THE DATASOURCE!!!
>
> there is lots and lots of oracle specific code in teo/weo that will require
> some work to make compatible with another database.  i will go through the
> code to show a preponderance of evidence, if necessary.

I understand that completely.  Contrary to any evidence in the past,
I'm not a moron and *have* heard you before.  I'm addressing the fact
that people are saying that we should ditch Oracle.

Additionally, if we don't start somewhere then we will sit and spin
our wheels.  Until there is a compelling reason to change the CMS
(code and/or platform), it is *not* going to be changed.  Until our
hand is forced, nothing will get done.  Having the database ported
removes one more obstacle to getting us to make the change.

A similar argument could be made about changing the CMS code right
now, i.e., it would force the database to change and get us moving.
However, I think that preliminary work can be done on the database
while we still run with Oracle.  Once the database change is made, we
know which way the code needs to be changed.

Dean