Re: EOL for 7.4? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 16:37 +0000, Dave Page wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Unless there are unfixable data loss bugs in it, I say we keep it.
>> >
>> > Many people still run it, so why make them move?
>>
>> There are non-trivial amounts of effort required to produce and test
>> packages for each branch we maintain. That affects all of the
>> packagers to varying degrees and should not be overlooked.
>
> This presumes a single group of packagers that does all releases. We'd
> be the only project that does that, AFAICS.
>
> Seems strange to limit tasks to just the same few people all the time.
> We could ask for volunteer maintainers for releases, rather than just
> say "the X people that do all the work no longer wish to do it and so
> we're not going to let anyone else either". No volunteers, no releases.
> That is exactly how this current project got started in the first place
> - picking up the maintenance responsibility on code that the original
> authors no longer wished to maintain.
>
> As in all things, any major changes with respect to packages should be
> discussed publicly, with notice given of any changes. Anybody that feels
> it is worth supporting could then come forward to do so.
>
> I hope we can avoid a sarcastic "over to you then Simon" reply. I'm not
> volunteering for it, but we should give others the opportunity to do so.
> My belief is there is a substantial user community for 7.4, and for 7.3
> also. There is no reason why we should act like a commercial company
> when we're a volunteer organisation.
>
> So suggestion: announce that 7.4 will be EOLd in 6 months unless
> volunteers come forward to support further releases. At the same time,
> announce what the EOL plans are for other releases, so people can begin
> planning upgrades. In most stable production systems the planning cycle
> can extend to years, rather than weeks or months.

But the effort is distributed across multiple people working at
different companies.  There are many people involved in packaging
PostgreSQL and we may not even know who all of them are, though we
probably do know the major ones.  Plus Peter updates translations,
Marc stamps releases, Tom and others backpatch bug fixes, etc.  You're
not going to take all those little dribs and drabs of responsibility
and transfer them to one person, or even one group of people.

We certainly don't have to EOL 7.4.  But neither can we maintain an
infinite collection of back-branches forever.  So we just need to
decide whether it's time.  If so, we pick a date and announce it.  If
not, we go on as we are and come back around to this topic in another
six months.  Personally, I think it would be reasonably to make the
announcement that 7.4 will be EOL when 8.5 is released, but YMMV,
BANI.

...Robert