Re: PG 19 release notes and authors - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Sun, Apr  5, 2026 at 11:10:52AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes:
> > On 2026-04-05 16:09:57 +0200, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> >> On 2026-Apr-05, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >>> I just updated the wiki to handle this case because obviously
> >>> Co-authored-by is listing more than just committers:
> 
> > I think that is a completely unwarranted change for which there is zero
> > concensus.
> 
> Indeed.  You exceeded your authority here.
> 
> Even if there were consensus about making this change going forward,
> the existing commit records were made under a different understanding.
> You can't just say you're going to reinterpret them in a way that
> excludes giving credit where credit is due.

My email said:

    I need to know what to do for PG 19, and what to do for later major
    releases.  I think Peter's point is why are people using Author
    and Co-authored-by in the same commits, and not just two Authors.

Any changes to the wiki are going forward.  While receiving emotional
replies, I have not received answers to my specific questions.

> > What I'm saying here boils down to this: I don't think it's sensible
> > to expect the use of a specific tag variant (or even the order in
> > which author names appear) to convey much useful information. I really
> > hope nobody reads too much into my choices in this area.
> 
> Well, I don't care what we decide, but we should decide something.  You
> can say they don't convey information, but I need to put something in
> the release notes, so they are forced to have some effect.
> 
> What confuses me are cases where Authors are not the committer and
> Co-authored-by are not the committer.  This combination is not
> documented in the wiki, which makes me think people are using
> Co-authored-by in ways that are inconsistent or I don't understand.

What is the answer, both for PG 19, and going forward?  I need an
answer because I need rules to follow.

I don't have a strong opinion but I do think we need a syntax for
committers to indicate they modified a patch, might have introduced
bugs, but don't want release note author credit, since I think several
people have found that useful.  Is that inaccurate?

I updated the wiki text to now be:

    https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance#Tags%3A_%22%3A%22
    Used to indicate the patch authors. "Co-authored-by:" should list
    individuals, particularly committers, who modified the patch but
                 ------------------------
    should not be listed as authors in the release notes.

I am updating the wiki text to try to get agreement on how to handle
"Co-authored-by:" because no one else seems to be trying to address that
question.

Another question is, now that we have links to the commits, are the
author names in the release notes only for giving credit, and not for
knowing who was the feature author?  Is that a sufficient reason to keep
the author names in the release notes?  Do other open source projects
have names next to features?

I think those are the open questions.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.