Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 08:10:04 -0800
From: Kevin Brown <kevin@sysexperts.com>
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Upcoming PG re-releases
Message-ID: <20051203161004.GB6827@filer>
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	<20051201051559.GA27630@fetter.org>
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David Fetter wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2005 at 11:56:33PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > So, if Sun, SRA, Pervasive, Command Prompt, etc were to submit a patch for 
> > v7.2, we'd refuse it?
> 
> That depends on what you mean by "refuse."  Such a patch wouldn't
> resurrect the original Postgres with POSTQUEL and cause us to support
> it, and it won't cause us to start supporting PostgreSQL 7.2 again
> either.

Okay, but suppose the patch in question breaks the version in question
in some subtle but horrible way?  If the community isn't "supporting"
the release in question then it implies that it won't go to the effort
of testing the patch, subjecting it to a beta period, etc.  But since
the patch would be applied by the community, the implication would be
that the community *endorses* the patch in question, since the
official source would be changed to reflect it.  If the patch breaks
the release horribly, just blindly accepting it wouldn't do good
things to the community's reputation.

And that means that the only really good way to guard against such an
occurrance is to subject the patch to the same process that's used for
officially supported releases.  At that point, there's no real
distinction between "officially supported" and "not officially
supported".  I doubt the community wants to go down that road.


The acceptance of a patch by the community probably implies a lot more
than one would think at first glance, so this is certainly an issue
that should be thought all the way through.


-- 
Kevin Brown					      kevin@sysexperts.com