>> Commenting more broadly on the whole thread, I think that
>more tarballs
>> is a bad thing. I already get emails (both to webmaster and
>privately)
>> from people not understanding what to download - more files
>will only
>> make that worse.
>
>Going this route will eliminate alot of the confusion, and
>probably result
>in us not needing the seperate
>postgresql-<split>-<release>.tar.gz files
>themselves, since there won't be anything left to put into the
>side files
>...
I definitly agree with Dave taht this will confuse users - at least new
users. Then again, they are already confused by what we have now. They
can't really be expected to read the README file before they download
it... As it is today, they download either one file (quite possibly the
wrong one), or just the whole directory to be sure (getting a whole lot
of duplicates).
But. As long as there is still a "postgresql-x.y.z.tar.gz" file that has
*everything that is contained in the split files*, we should be fine.
Automated things like freebsd ports can pull the split files as needed,
whereas users downloading "postgres" will get all they need.
Actually, if the number of "split files" (whatever their names) increase
even further, may I suggest they are moved into a subdir of their own,
keeping just the main distribution and the README about the splits in
the main dir?
>Plus, also with what Josh has suggested, we'd also end up with a:
>
> postgresql-WTKS.tar.gz (with the kitchen sink) file
>that contained
>everything for those that really wanted to download "it all" ...
That would be "postgresql-x.y.z.tar.gz", right? ;-)
>So, there would be no confusion for what to download, since it
>would all
>be laid out for you ... you want a server with plperl, you
>download the
>server and the plperl tar file ... you already have a server,
>but want to
>add plpython, you download the plpython tar file ...
You are assuming that the person downloading actually *knows* what he
wants. This will frequently not be the case for somebody who is not
already familiar with how the different parts of PostgreSQL interacts.
Bottom line - make it easy for the *newbies*. Those of us who know
exactly what we want will know where to look for it (say in a separate
subdir). (or we'll just download the whole tarball anyway because that
is *way* much more convenient... Speaking for myself there, of course.)
//Magnus
