F22 Self Contained Change: Database Server Role

Chris Adams linux at cmadams.net
Tue Jan 20 14:46:38 UTC 2015


Once upon a time, Stephen Gallagher <sgallagh at redhat.com> said:
> One of the core focuses of Fedora Server is to simplify things. It's
> meant to help less-experienced users of Linux get up and running with
> common activities more quickly. Providing the "PostgreSQL" role and the
> "MariaDB" role means that we've forced the user to do additional
> research to figure out what they want. However, if we name one "Database
> Server", we are implicitly telling the user: "use this one, unless you
> have a specific need".

Well, but a user will still have to do that research.  A database isn't
like a browser or word processor; it doesn't exist in a vacuum and one
database engine can't just replace another at will.  Some programs
support a wide variety of database engines, and some don't.  For
example, for good or bad, many PHP-based things assume MySQL; some can
be configured otherwise, but most default to MySQL (and that may be all
the developers actually test).

Database engines are probably one of the least interchangeable pieces,
so choosing _any_ (I'd say the same thing if this was a proposal to use
MariaDB) as "THE database engine" is poor IM(very)HO.  It isn't about
promoting one engine over another, it is just that none are really the
one engine to rule them all.  Given that, I don't see a reason to
declare any engine as the one true Database Server.  I think any role
for a database should have the engine name in the Role.

But yeah, that's just my opinion, probably not even worth two cents.
-- 
Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>


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