Re: PG 19 release notes and authors

On Mon, Apr 6, 2026 at 9:30 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> I now realize the Commit Message Guidance used during PG 19 was unclear;
> it was:
>
>         Used to indicate the patch authors.  "Co-authored-by:" is used by
>         committers when they want to give full credit to the named individuals,
>         but also indicate that they made significant changes.
>
> I doesn't really say we are giving credit to "Author" individuals but
> list committers as co-authors with no credit, so that bad wording is on
> me.  It should have said:
>
>         Used to indicate the patch authors.  "Co-authored-by:" is to list
>         committers when they want to give full credit to the "Author"
>         individuals, but also indicate that they made significant changes.

That's not how I interpreted it at all, and after seeing commits with
both "Author" and "Co-authored-by" I am equally confused as to how
people are interpreting it.

> I think having "Co-authored-by:" mean one thing when "Author" appears
> and a different thing when "Author" is missing is too confusing.

My take is that the co-author tag has backfired and made things less
clear. If we are using it inconsistently, then it doesn't convey any
useful information. I'd actually rather just use "Author" exclusively
and if there is some further detail that needs to be conveyed, it can
be in the message body.

--
John Naylor
Amazon Web Services