On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Timwi <timwi@gmx.net> wrote:
> On 27/05/2011 20:23, Dave Page wrote:
>>
>> I do use github. It was more the fact that you seem to consider source
>> control to be a hinderance and something to work around rather than an
>> essential part of a sound development process.
>
> It’s an essential part of the development process, but it is certainly a
> hindrance for people (like me) who just want to get the source and not
> really get involved with the development process. Why do you think the vast
> majority of open-source projects do offer the source as a downloadable zip?
> I think it’s because they realise they benefit a lot from making it as easy
> as absolutely possible for the drive-by contributor to suggest a small but
> desirable change without having to fully dive into the project. Such
> passers-by greatly outnumber the regular contributors.
But we do offer source downloads. We don't currently have snapshot
tarballs for a variety of reasons (one of which was that noone ever
used them), but we most certainly have tarballs available for all our
release, beta and rc versions. They're not exactly hidden either - go
to the website, click "Download" and then click "Source Code".
> Additionally, even among people who are (like me) very familiar with
> multiple source-control systems, the set of people who are familiar with a
> *specific* system are in a minority compared to the people who aren’t. You
> cannot expect everyone to know (much less /like/) everything, especially not
> if it’s something as arcane and amateurishly undesigned like git.
That is why we have simple instructions on the website.
--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company