Re: OpenRPT

== PostgreSQL Weekly News - April 24 2005 ==

There's been a lot of discussion of patents and the PostgreSQL
community's public stance on them should be. We've taken that public
stance by making our software patent-free in every instance we have
found. Let's take the discussion off the -www list and continue it on
-advocacy where it belongs.

Tom Lane added bitmapping of regular indexes in memory, hereafter
known as a "bitmapscan". The purpose of this innovation is to allow
bitmap operations joining several different indexes, or even several
OR conditions on the same INDEX. It is expected to dramatically
improve performance on queries with complex WHERE conditions on
servers with fast CPU and lots of RAM. However, we have not yet set
the planner cost estimates for using bitmapscans, so users are
encouraged to download the current snapshot, test with
enable_bitmapscan turned on or off, and report results.

Please note that this is a different feature than Victor Y. Yegorov's
on-disk bitmap indexes, which are a new index type intended to allow
indexing low-cardinality attributes on large tables. The two features
together should greatly improve performance of descision support /
business intelligence workloads.

Josh Berkus brought up the fact that PostgreSQL's estimates of index
cardinality are very far off. Andrew Dunstan proposed a solution from
a paper from 2000.

http://www.stat.washington.edu/www/research/reports/1999/tr355.ps

You can help by deciphering arithmetic for the estimator and turning
it into a patch.

== PostgreSQL Product News ==

OpenRPT is a graphical SQL report writer, designer and rendering
engine, optimized for PostgreSQL. WYSIWYG display, GUI built with Qt,
runs on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X. Server-side rendering engine.
Reports can be saved as XML, either as files or in a database.
http://pgfoundry.org/projects/openrpt/

== PostgreSQL in the News ==

Neil Conway gave a talk on the optimizer at linux.conf.au.
http://linux.conf.au/abstract.php?id=147
Slides here:
http://neilc.treehou.se/optimizer.pdf

General Bits: http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/
Truths, blessed truths, and stat_*

David Fetter wrote:

> == PostgreSQL Product News ==
>
> OpenRPT is a graphical SQL report writer, designer and rendering
> engine, optimized for PostgreSQL. WYSIWYG display, GUI built with Qt,
> runs on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X. Server-side rendering engine.
> Reports can be saved as XML, either as files or in a database.
> http://pgfoundry.org/projects/openrpt/

Dave, thanks for the plug - and thanks to everyone who's expressed an interest in OpenRPT so far. It seems there are still some performance issues with pgFoundry (pending setup of new servers?) - so for now, we're going to do our best not to contribute to the load, and point people to OpenRPT's home on SourceForge, where the iron is big and the pipes fat:

http://openrpt.sf.net/

We're very interested in engaging with the PostgreSQL community to help make OpenRPT better. For those who aren't familiar with us, the OpenRPT project has spun out of an ERP application called OpenMFG. I'm the CEO of OpenMFG LLC, the company; I was previously one of the founders of Great Bridge, a first-generation Postgres company that was a casualty of the dot-com boom/bust cycle four years ago. I formed OpenMFG to bring a Postgres-based ERP system to market (www.openmfg.com) ... and along the way, part of what we built with our ERP was a multiplatform report writer.

The OpenMFG ERP Suite is inexpensive but not free; source code provided and patches accepted, but not OSI-certified "open source." We decided that the report writer level of the "stack" was different, however, and decided to release OpenRPT under the GPL for anyone and everyone who wants to abide by the terms of the GPL. For those who would like to "opt out" of the GPL, we also offer a commercial license. For more on the licensing, as well as downloads, CVS, screenshots, docs, project info, etc., please check out the project homepage at http://openrpt.sf.net.

Thanks very much,
Ned

--
Ned Lilly
President and CEO
OpenMFG, LLC
420 North Center Drive
Building 11, Suite 115
Norfolk, VA 23502
tel: 757-461-3022
mailto: ned(at)openmfg(dot)com
www.openmfg.com

> Dave, thanks for the plug - and thanks to everyone who's expressed an
> interest in OpenRPT so far. It seems there are still some performance
> issues with pgFoundry (pending setup of new servers?) - so for now,
> we're going to do our best not to contribute to the load, and point
> people to OpenRPT's home on SourceForge, where the iron is big and the
> pipes fat:
>
> http://openrpt.sf.net/

Erm. I looked at that software. It's freakin' rad. Finally I can do
reports for managers without MS Access...

Chris

chriskl(at)familyhealth(dot)com(dot)au (Christopher Kings-Lynne) wrote:
>> Dave, thanks for the plug - and thanks to everyone who's expressed
>> an interest in OpenRPT so far. It seems there are still some
>> performance issues with pgFoundry (pending setup of new servers?) -
>> so for now, we're going to do our best not to contribute to the
>> load, and point people to OpenRPT's home on SourceForge, where the
>> iron is big and the pipes fat:
>> http://openrpt.sf.net/
>
> Erm. I looked at that software. It's freakin' rad. Finally I can do
> reports for managers without MS Access...

My question would be whether or not it's "batchable" for environments
where you haven't got X running or available.

It could be nifty to "drag and drool" some reports into place, but
there are cases where that's only useful if they can subsequently be
deployed without needing to have either Qt or X available.
--
(format nil "~S(at)~S" "cbbrowne" "gmail.com")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/slony.html
There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game.

Christopher Browne wrote:

> My question would be whether or not it's "batchable" for environments
> where you haven't got X running or available.
>
> It could be nifty to "drag and drool" some reports into place, but
> there are cases where that's only useful if they can subsequently be
> deployed without needing to have either Qt or X available.

Yeah, currently, the Qt library requires X to be running. We have some hope that this won't be the case with Qt4, now in beta. Haven't had much time to play with that yet...

In our OpenMFG ERP product, what we currently do for our Batch Manager application running reports in a way like you're describing is to run it in a VNC server session. Would that be an option for you?

Regards,
Ned

ned(at)nedscape(dot)com (Ned Lilly) writes:
> Christopher Browne wrote:
>
>> My question would be whether or not it's "batchable" for environments
>> where you haven't got X running or available.
>>
>> It could be nifty to "drag and drool" some reports into place, but
>> there are cases where that's only useful if they can subsequently be
>> deployed without needing to have either Qt or X available.
>
>
> Yeah, currently, the Qt library requires X to be running. We have
> some hope that this won't be the case with Qt4, now in beta.
> Haven't had much time to play with that yet...
>
> In our OpenMFG ERP product, what we currently do for our Batch
> Manager application running reports in a way like you're describing
> is to run it in a VNC server session. Would that be an option for
> you?

Hmm.

Not on a headless server where the nearest available screen is 900
miles away, and where it's entirely possible that running "remote X"
would be considered an attempt at a network exploit...

And considering that I'd be forced to install, from sources, in some
user area, such nonsalutory things as Qt, and to do that, some sort of
C++ "standard library" set, methinks this fits into the category of
"that might be cool for someone else."

Reporting infrastructure that requires a GUI to operate seems "broken
by design" for server use...
--
(format nil "~S(at)~S" "cbbrowne" "acm.org")
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/sap.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #78. "I will not tell my Legions of Terror
"And he must be taken alive!" The command will be: ``And try to take
him alive if it is reasonably practical.''"
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

On Monday 25 April 2005 18:40, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> > Dave, thanks for the plug - and thanks to everyone who's expressed an
> > interest in OpenRPT so far. It seems there are still some performance
> > issues with pgFoundry (pending setup of new servers?) - so for now,
> > we're going to do our best not to contribute to the load, and point
> > people to OpenRPT's home on SourceForge, where the iron is big and the
> > pipes fat:
> >
> > http://openrpt.sf.net/
>
> Erm. I looked at that software. It's freakin' rad. Finally I can do
> reports for managers without MS Access...

Yes this is a great tool, I've fond all sorts of great uses for it already,
Are there any plans to turn it into more than just reports, ie will it evolve
to become more like Oracle forms?

>
> Chris
>
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--
Darcy Buskermolen
Wavefire Technologies Corp.

http://www.wavefire.com
ph: 250.717.0200
fx: 250.763.1759

On Tue, 26 Apr 2005, Chris Browne wrote:

> ned(at)nedscape(dot)com (Ned Lilly) writes:
>> Christopher Browne wrote:
>>
>>> My question would be whether or not it's "batchable" for environments
>>> where you haven't got X running or available.
>>>
>>> It could be nifty to "drag and drool" some reports into place, but
>>> there are cases where that's only useful if they can subsequently be
>>> deployed without needing to have either Qt or X available.
>>
>>
>> Yeah, currently, the Qt library requires X to be running. We have
>> some hope that this won't be the case with Qt4, now in beta.
>> Haven't had much time to play with that yet...
>>
>> In our OpenMFG ERP product, what we currently do for our Batch
>> Manager application running reports in a way like you're describing
>> is to run it in a VNC server session. Would that be an option for
>> you?
>
> Hmm.
>
> Not on a headless server where the nearest available screen is 900
> miles away, and where it's entirely possible that running "remote X"
> would be considered an attempt at a network exploit...

What about something like Xfvb, which can be used for stuff like Enhydra,
which also requires X to be running on the server?

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
>
> Yes this is a great tool, I've fond all sorts of great uses for it already,
> Are there any plans to turn it into more than just reports, ie will it evolve
> to become more like Oracle forms?

Not at this time, although if you've got some specific ideas on that front, please get involved in the project and let us hear 'em.

The OpenMFG ERP application has an awful lot of that kind of plumbing already, widgets that we built with Qt, etc., so it's not high up on our internal list.

Cheers,
Ned

* Ned Lilly <ned(at)nedscape(dot)com> wrote:

<snip>
> Yeah, currently, the Qt library requires X to be running.
Thats *one* reason why we lately moved some applications away from Qt.
(well, there're about 1000 more good reasons).

<snip>
> We have some hope that this won't be the case with Qt4, now in beta.
> Haven't had much time to play with that yet...
For me, personally, time of playing in sandpit with matchbox toy cars
is definitly over ...

<snip>
> In our OpenMFG ERP product, what we currently do for our Batch Manager
> application running reports in a way like you're describing is to run it in
> a VNC server session. Would that be an option for you?

my dear, too much sun makes giddy ... ;-)

cu
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