Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2026 11:25:47 -0400
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
Cc: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
	Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>,
	=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>,
	Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>, Andrey Borodin <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>,
	PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: PG 19 release notes and authors
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On Mon, Apr  6, 2026 at 08:15:51AM -0700, David G. Johnston wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2026, 08:04 Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> 
>     On Mon, Apr  6, 2026 at 10:56:49AM -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>     >
>     > On 2026-04-06 Mo 10:29 AM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>     >
>     >     I think having "Co-authored-by:" mean one thing when "Author" appears
>     >     and a different thing when "Author" is missing is too confusing.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > Possibly. I think we're tying ourselves up in knots needlessly here,
>     though. To
>     > me, without having to interpret the exact meaning by consulting a wiki,
>     > Co-authored-by signifies that the person made a significant contribution,
>     but
>     > not as much as the Author(s). These things shouldn't be technical terms
>     of art.
>     >
>     > Personally, I'm in favor of being fairly liberal about giving release
>     note
>     > credits.
> 
>     So "Co-authored-by:" shows a level of involvement, but doesn't have any
>     effect on the major release notes.  That works too.

Sorry, I meant to say that whether a name is "Author" or
"Co-authored-by:" doesn't matter --- both appear in the release notes.

> 
> "Liberal" here means give it even for the lesser contributions.  They should
> appear in the release notes.

Right, that is what I hear Andrew saying.

> If everyone explicitly lists every author using the author tag for
> non-committer-only commits the rule that all authors are equal applies and we
> can move one with that preferred wording. Co-authors becomes unnecessary.  But
> the usage as it stands historically is that co-authors are authors and if a
> commit doesn't have an explicit author the committer is one.  We can leave that
> stand as historical and when people fall back on old habits.

Uh, do people actually want to use that?  I would rather not add
complexity unless I hear someone wants it.

> Maybe add Assisted-by if we want to introduce a intermediate level between
> author and reviewer.  It does seem we failed to make that be co-author and
> redefining should be avoided.

Uh, yeah, good question.  We can define what we want going forward and I
we have different rules for PG 19.

-- 
  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.