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From: Jason Smith <jhs@iriscouch.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2011 08:21:28 +0700
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Subject: Re: Binary Downloads
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Love it. FWIW, here are some thoughts from Build CouchDB feedback.

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 5:26 AM, Jan Lehnardt <jan@apache.org> wrote:
> Randall, Till,
>
> I had hoped I addressed this in my original mail, but let me try again :)
>
> I'm in favour of all the things your are saying, but I'm trying to addres=
s this scenario:
>
> $ wget $url
> $ tar xzf $archive
> $ ./$dir/couchdb
> =C2=A0Time to relax.

Basically, I suggest clearly identifying every non-goal early. It will
help to assess exactly what people want.

I am not sure ./bin/couchdb is what people want. I've seen
disappointment from build-couchdb users. The world has changed since
Noah ported CouchDB to autotools. System administrators are an
endangered species. Time was, once you got `make install` working, it
was downhill from there. Now, people don't find that as relaxing.

* If there is a system couch, you get a long scary message with
'eaddrinuse' buried somewhere in it
* When you reboot or computer crashes (possibly 6 months later), Couch
isn't running anymore
* Log rotation doesn't work (eventually breaking the /_log query in
version =3D< 1.1.1)
* It's unclear how a backup/restore would work.
* It's unclear how an upgrade would work.
* It's only "native" in the strictest sense, you can't manage it with
the OS (i.e. it's not an .app bundle, .msi installer, .pkg, .rpm etc.)

The first email I got about Build CouchDB, somebody said thanks and
that it helped. Not one hour later, two emails complained that there
is no Ubuntu package. It was really discouraging. But I'd done poor
expectation management. So, the above may be excessive for now, but at
least clearly describe goals and non-goals.

--=20
Iris Couch