Re: moving from contrib to bin

Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnakangas(at)vmware(dot)com> writes:
> On 12/12/2014 03:07 PM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On 12/9/14 4:10 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>>> Maybe it makes sense to have a distinction between client programs and
>>> server programs. Can we have src/sbin/ and move stuff that involves the
>>> server side in there? I think that'd be pg_xlogdump, pg_archivecleanup,
>>> pg_upgrade, pg_test_timing, pg_test_fsync. (If we were feeling bold we
>>> could also move pg_resetxlog, pg_controldata and initdb there.)

>> I was thinking about that. What do others think?

> Sounds good. We already separate server and client programs in the docs,
> and packagers put them in different packages too. This should make
> packagers' life a little bit easier in the long run.

I'm pretty much -1 on relocating anything that's under src/bin already.
The history mess and back-patching pain would outweigh any notional
cleanliness --- and AFAICS it's entirely notional. As an ex-packager
I can tell you that where stuff sits in the source tree makes precisely
*zero* difference to a packager. She's going to do "make install-world"
and then her package recipe will list out which files in the install tree
go into which sub-package. Perhaps it would get clearer to packagers if
we also installed stuff into $INSTALLDIR/sbin, but I doubt that such a
change is going to fly with anyone else. The bin vs sbin distinction
is not universal.

regards, tom lane