Re: PG 19 release notes and authors

On Mon, Apr 6, 2026, 08:04 Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr  6, 2026 at 10:56:49AM -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> >
> > On 2026-04-06 Mo 10:29 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >
> >     I think having "Co-authored-by:" mean one thing when "Author" appears
> >     and a different thing when "Author" is missing is too confusing.
> >
> >
> >
> > Possibly. I think we're tying ourselves up in knots needlessly here,
> though. To
> > me, without having to interpret the exact meaning by consulting a wiki,
> > Co-authored-by signifies that the person made a significant
> contribution, but
> > not as much as the Author(s). These things shouldn't be technical terms
> of art.
> >
> > Personally, I'm in favor of being fairly liberal about giving release
> note
> > credits.
>
> So "Co-authored-by:" shows a level of involvement, but doesn't have any
> effect on the major release notes.  That works too.
>

"Liberal" here means give it even for the lesser contributions.  They
should appear in the release notes.

If everyone explicitly lists every author using the author tag for
non-committer-only commits the rule that all authors are equal applies and
we can move one with that preferred wording. Co-authors becomes
unnecessary.  But the usage as it stands historically is that co-authors
are authors and if a commit doesn't have an explicit author the committer
is one.  We can leave that stand as historical and when people fall back on
old habits.

Maybe add Assisted-by if we want to introduce a intermediate level between
author and reviewer.  It does seem we failed to make that be co-author and
redefining should be avoided.

David J.