On Sunday, July 27, 2025, Michael Paquier <
michael@paquier.xyz> wrote:
I am not going to argue against the commits that have reached
REL_18_STABLE to add compatibility for libxml2 2.13.X, we can leave
this stuff as-is and enforce stronger restrictions across all versions
of libxml2, letting users deal with application changes across a major
version change of PG. So, while it is not perfect and I'm aware of
that my argument is not perfect, it would at least give packagers and
users the option to use the previous compatibility layer if they want,
leaving the stable branches of PG somewhat intact. What I think is
bad for users is the fact that Postgres closes entirely this window,
on a stable branch, even if this was accidental based on the previous
coding style. I understand that from the point of view of a
maintainer this is rather bad, but from the customer point of view the
current situation is also bad to deal with in the scope of a minor
upgrade, because applications suddenly break.
Is breaking with tradition and implementing the solution that locks down the system but also gives DBAs the ability the make an informed runtime decision to bypass said restriction on the table?
David J.
