March 2015 - Haskell-Cafe

ANNOUNCE postgresql-query and postgresql-config
by Alexey Uimanov 01 Mar '15

01 Mar '15

Hi guys! Here is yet another some-level library to work with PostgreSQL DB. http://hackage.haskell.org/package/postgresql-query This library uses `postgresql-query` and is a list of helpers/workarounds to generate complex queries more safely and parse result. What it contains: 1. interplating quasiquote `sqlExp` which uses instances of `ToField` typeclass to paste values inside query. It looks like this: let val = "'hello'" :: Text q = [sqlExp|SELECT field1 FROM tbl WHERE field2 = #{val}|] where `val` is an arbitrary Haskell expression which type has instance of `ToField` Resulting query will be like: "SELECT field1 FROM tbl WHERE field2 = '''hello'''" Yes, proper string escaping is performed authomatically like using this '?'-like queries with parameters. Resulting type of quasiquote is `SqlBuilder` which uses bytestring builders inside and can be concatenated efficiently. There is also posibility to paste one query inside another like: let q2 = [sqlExp|SELECT field1 f FROM (^{q}) WHERE field1 is not null|] so `q2` will generate nested query. sqlExp also removes SQL comments and removes long sequences of space characters. It also properly handles string literals and quoted identifiers inside quasiquotes. 2. Typeclass `HasPostgres`, simple connection reader `PgMonadT` and functions like `pgQuery` to perform queries. http://hackage.haskell.org/package/postgresql-query-1.0.1/docs/Database-Pos… 3. TH functions to authomatically derive `FromRow` and `ToRow` instances (from postgresql-simple) http://hackage.haskell.org/package/postgresql-query-1.0.1/docs/Database-Pos… 4. Some kind of primitive pre-ORM which generates queries for CRUD-ing simple record types. It looks like: data User = User { userName :: !Text , userPasswordEncrypted :: !Text } deriving (Show, Eq, Ord, Typeable) type UserId = EntityId User $(deriveFromRow ''User) $(deriveToRow ''User) instance Entity User where newtype EntityId User = UserId { unUserId :: UUID } -- Note that you can use any type for id deriving (Show, Read, Ord, Eq, FromField, ToField, PathPiece) -- To use with Yesod tableName _ = "users" fieldNames _ = [ "name" , "password_encrypted" ] runPgMonadT con $ do uid <- pgInsertEntity $ User "name" "j27dna74ja784ha7" pgUpdateEntity uid $ MR [("name", mkValue "John")] pgDeleteEntity uid There is also package http://hackage.haskell.org/package/postgresql-config which contains trivial code to make your postgresql-simple connection pool easily configurable.

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Hackage and Free Software
by Mike Meyer 01 Mar '15

01 Mar '15

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 3:03 AM, fr33domlover <fr33domlover(a)riseup.net> wrote: > Hello Mike, > I think there's some confusion here. I wan't talking about GPL compatible > licenses, but about *any* free software license! According to Gershom's letter, it already does that. Or at least "cabal check" does. > It looks like Creative Commons licenses may apply too, in particular the > version 4 ones. CC by 4 is even GPL-compatible. > The same for EPL and CDDL! Check out this: > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.HTML > Both are free sofware licenses. GPL compatibility isn't the issue here :) That URL gets a 404 error. However, if you look at this page: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.HTML you'll find that the EPL and CDDL are listed as incompatible. The CC licenses are only mentioned as non-software licenses, and not all of them are listed. Nuts, it's even documented that the CC licenses aren't all compatible with each other! https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Wiki/cc_license_compatibility > > And what if I want something like the CDDL or the EPL? Those are both > > licenses that the OSI says are popular. > The FSF approves them as well, like I said. Well, I found them on a free license list. Of course, some of those include things like "We urge you not to use the CDDL" in them, which hardly sounds like approval to me. 5 > > You're addressing the nits, not the core issue I tried to raise: > > placing restrictions on what licenses (or lack thereof) are acceptable > > will discourage people from making software available via Hackage. > I don't think it will, because people are already making free software. Look at > other existing hosting services - they're *full* of free software! This is what > people are making anyway. All I suggest is to make it official, providing a > guarantee so people know each `cabal install` indeed installs only free > software. As long as you're willing to accept any license that the author thinks of as free, then it won't. But that's such a broad scope as to make this change effectively negligible, even from my nit-picking standpoint. > > Or I may not care. If I build a binary that uses one package that's > > GPL-licensed and one that uses an incompatible OSI-approved license, I > > can distribute my source under whatever terms I want, because my > > source doesn't include source from those packages. I can build and run > > binaries myself with no problems, and that may be fine. But I can't > > distribute binaries because I can't satisfy both licenses > > simultaneously, and that may not be acceptable. > That's true, but eventually you wouldn't want to do that. I mean, if you build > some program, you'd be happy to have it packaged for distros and make binary > releases for people who don't want to build from source. Sure, I may be happy to have the binaries build and packaged for all distros. Then again, I know there are people building software using Haskell - and hence hackage or stackage - that aren't planning on distributing the software in any form, so don't care about this issue. For me personally, the FreeBSD package system allows for adding things that have to be built from source for some reason or another, and make building them as easy as installing the binaries. I'm happy providing FreeBSD ports, but making it possible for people building packages for less flexible systems who actually check all the licenses involved isn't something I'm going to spend a lot of effort on. And you're proposed change - or possibly non-change, given what Gershom reported - won't change that effort. All the licenses involved are free. However, some of them aren't compatible with each other, so the only way to fix this is to use different packages. I suppose I could try and get some of the authors to change their license, but that's probably even more work. > This is essentially the question I'm asking the community: do you care about > the packages being free software, allowing legal distribution of binaries? > Specifically, would you make a step forward and make it official, build-in > into Hackage? Except you can't answer the question "does it allow legal distribution of binaries" by just looking at the license on the package. You also have to consider the licenses on the transitive closure of the libraries it uses, as they will be included in the binary, or at least dynamically linked to it, and thus may be considered a derivative work of the packages it includes. So your binary has to comply with the terms of all those licenses, which may not be possible even if all the licenses are approved by the OSI or on the FSF's list of free licenses. Which is also why even the relatively minor restriction "must allow free redistribution of binaries" isn't one I'd be happy with. Sure, it probably won't affect most people. But it equally won't help most people who want to distribute binaries, because it only removes a minor source of barriers to doing so. Unless, of course, by "must allow free redistribution of binaries", you mean "doesn't place any restrictions whatsoever on the distribution of binaries", which would eliminate the not only many of the CC licenses, but also the GPL and some of the BSD licenses. <mike

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Hackage and Free Software
by Mike Meyer 01 Mar '15

01 Mar '15

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:43 PM, fr33domlover <fr33domlover(a)riseup.net> wrote: On 2015-02-28 Mike Meyer <mwm(a)mired.org> wrote: > > Anything that excludes software that we could use, or otherwise > > discourages people from making software available to the community, is > > a bad idea. A restriction to OSF-approved licenses would exclude > > anything released under a Creative Commons license, since the OSF > > doesn't list those, which makes sense as they aren't "software > > licences" per se. And your restriction of "released under a license" > > would exclude public domain software - at least in countries that > > recognize such a thing. > > As to creative commons - indeed they aren't meant for software (maybe except > for CC0, which is basically like public domain). But I also don't think people > want to use them once they see the problem: If you want it permissive, you have > Apache for example (also BSD/MIT), and if you want copyleft you have GPL (also > AGPL, etc.). And what if I want something like the CDDL or the EPL? Those are both licenses that the OSI says are popular. > As to public domain: It's actually just fine! It's true than most countries > recognize lack of license as "all rights reserved", but I also think it's a > very small and trivial task for a maintainer to add a few license lines to > state that the software should be globally treated as public domain. > > So public domain software is just fine, free software. You're addressing the nits, not the core issue I tried to raise: placing restrictions on what licenses (or lack thereof) are acceptable will discourage people from making software available via Hackage. > > Yes, these are nits, but these are nits that could cause someone to > > decide not to put software that is otherwise perfectly acceptable on > > Hackage. > That depends on what "acceptable" means. In the worst case you can have > separation between free and nonfree software by tag, and make it possible to > turn nonfree software on/off using a cabal-install commandline option. > > This will allow people to upload first, and then think and understand the > licensing situation. Once they do, they can properly tag their project. Could > that work? I don't know. I suspect that if you do that, a lot of people would never bother tagging their packages. Would that work for you? You also talk like free/non-free was a binary decision, when it isn't. The OSI lists licenses that aren't compatible with the GPL - like the aforementioned EPL and CDDL. People releasing software under one of those will want to avoid GPL licensed software, whereas people releasing GPL licensed software will want to avoid those licenses, but they are all free. Or I may not care. If I build a binary that uses one package that's GPL-licensed and one that uses an incompatible OSI-approved license, I can distribute my source under whatever terms I want, because my source doesn't include source from those packages. I can build and run binaries myself with no problems, and that may be fine. But I can't distribute binaries because I can't satisfy both licenses simultaneously, and that may not be acceptable. <mike

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Re: [Haskell-cafe] Hackage and Free Software
by Francesco Ariis 28 Feb '15

28 Feb '15

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 07:27:16PM +0200, fr33domlover wrote: > I'd like to make a suggestion: have Hackage accept only packages > released under free software licenses. This is probably true for > most/all packages there, but making it official will both send a > strong message to and from the community, and provide people with > the security and peace of mind, knowing their software is free as > in freedom. I was pretty sure there was a note somewhere on hackage to only upload software with open source licences, but alas I cannot find it now... (maybe I am confusing myself with another package archiver?). I agree having a "please use a licence approved by the OSI/FSF" could prevent problems and seems a sensible choice in any case.

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A Question about IO
by Zongzhe Yuan 28 Feb '15

28 Feb '15

Hi i have a question about IO monad. Sometimes IO do something and return something, i wonder if the return type, for example is IO Int means it will return an int, could i purely fetch the int? but i fail, i cannot construct a function, i use do notation but i found i must use something to pass the int to another monad. But i could write a function has the type of Maybe a -> a and it is easily. Maybe monad and IO monad both instance monad but why i can’t do that? Zongzhe Yuan This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.

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