Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 18:52:00 -0300
From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
	PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
	Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Subject: Re: pg_dump versus ancient server versions
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On 2021-Oct-24, Robert Haas wrote:

> You know, one thing we could think about doing is patching some of the
> older branches to make them compile on modern machines. That would not
> only be potentially useful for people who are upgrading from ancient
> versions, but also for hackers trying to do research on the origin of
> bugs or performance problems, and also for people who are trying to
> maintain some kind of backward compatibility or other and want to test
> against old versions.

I think it is worth *some* effort, at least as far back as we want to
claim that we maintain pg_dump and/or psql compatibility, assuming it is
not too onerous.  For instance, I wouldn't want to clutter buildfarm or
CI dashboards with testing these branches, unless it is well isolated
from regular ones; we shouldn't commit anything that's too invasive; and
we shouldn't make any claims about supportability of these abandoned
branches.

As an example, I did backpatch one such fix to 8.3 (just over a year)
and 8.2 (four years) after they had closed -- see d13f41d21538 and
105f3ef492ab.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera           39°49'30"S 73°17'W  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"Puedes vivir sólo una vez, pero si lo haces bien, una vez es suficiente"