Re: Reports on obsolete Postgres versions

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se>

From: Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se>
To: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
Cc: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, "Jonathan S. Katz" <jkatz@postgresql.org>
Date: 2024-03-12T10:00:19Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
> On 12 Mar 2024, at 02:37, Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 05:17:13PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 04:12:04PM -0500, Nathan Bossart wrote:
>>> I've read that the use of the term "minor release" can be confusing.  While
>>> the versioning page clearly describes what is eligible for a minor release,
>>> not everyone reads it, so I suspect that many folks think there are new
>>> features, etc. in minor releases.  I think a "minor release" of Postgres is
>>> more similar to what other projects would call a "patch version."
>> 
>> Well, we do say:
>> 
>> 	While upgrading will always contain some level of risk, PostgreSQL
>> 	minor releases fix only frequently-encountered bugs, security issues,
>> 	and data corruption problems to reduce the risk associated with
>> 	upgrading. For minor releases, the community considers not upgrading to
>> 	be riskier than upgrading. 
>> 
>> but that is far down the page.  Do we need to improve this?
> 
> I think making that note more visible would certainly be an improvement.

We have this almost at the top of the page, which IMHO isn't a very good
description about what a minor version is:

	Each major version receives bug fixes and, if need be, security fixes
	that are released at least once every three months in what we call a
	"minor release."

Maybe we can rewrite that sentence to properly document what a minor is (bug
fixes *and* security fixes) with a small blurb about the upgrade risk?

(Adding Jonathan in CC: who is good at website copy).

--
Daniel Gustafsson