Re: First draft of PG 19 release notes

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 03:27:06PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 10:21:34AM -0700, Jacob Champion wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 15, 2026 at 9:57 AM Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> > > I have used your text above. FYI, the commit message only has this for
> > > author:
> > >
> > > Co-authored-by: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh(dot)bapat(dot)oss(at)gmail(dot)com>
> >
> > The pattern of "a missing Author means the committer is the primary
> > author" was discussed at [1]; you asked if Co-authored-by was used
> > that way, and the answer was "yes". I use it, too.
>
> Well, I am guessing you didn't read this thread fully:
>
> https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/adElLtegJxi6Yecv%40momjian.us
>
> which opened with the question:
>
> In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author
> and Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the
> Author names are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.
>
> and I was told that authors and "Co-authored-by" should be listed; they
> are effectively the same, except that github recognizes
> "Co-authored-by".
>
> I _thought_ the plan from January 2025 until March 2026 was:
>
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance
> Author:
> Co-authored-by:
> Used to indicate the patch authors. "Co-authored-by:" is used by
> committers when they want to give full credit to the named individuals,
> but also indicate that they made significant changes.
>
> This was specifically for "Co-authored-by:" == committer, but the text
> was not clear enough. However, that doesn't match your usage where a
> missing "Author" is considered to be the committer.

I think if the committer omits an "Author" tag, but credits a
non-committer as "Co-Author", then both the committer and the
non-committer should be considered authors and credited in the release
notes.

What would be the use-case for a sole non-committer "Co-Author" (as
opposed to just crediting the non-committer as "Author") otherwise be?

Michael