Re: Is there really no interest in SQL Standard?

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 12:20 PM, David Fetter <david@fetter.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 10:58:49AM -0400, Joe Abbate wrote:
>> On 09/19/2011 09:50 AM, Josh Berkus wrote:
>> > FWIW, the fact that the drafts *are* confidential is symptomatic
>> > of everything which is wrong with the ISO.
>>
>> Maybe it's time for an open source SQL standard, one not controlled
>> by the "big guys" and their IP claims.
>
> That's probably not a bad idea.  The down side is that it'll be the work
> of decades, not years, to get this thing going.

Actually, I think it *is* a bad idea, as it would require construction
from whole cloth of kinds of mostly political infrastructure that we
don't have, as a community and aren't necessarily notably competent to
construct.

The nearest sort of thing that *could* conceivably be sensible would
be to participate in UnQL
<http://www.unqlspec.org/display/UnQL/Home>.  That's early enough in
its process that it's likely somewhat guidable, and, with the
popularity of NoSQL, being at the "ground breaking" of a common query
language to access that would likely be useful to us.

If we wanted to start a new standards process, I imagine it would best
involve embracing "truly relational," stepping back to PostQUEL, and
promoting a standard based on something off more in that direction.

As much as that might sound like a terrible idea, trying to "take
over" SQL by forking it strikes me as a much *worse* idea.
--
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"