Re: State of support for back PG branches

Tom Lane wrote:

>"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
>
>
>>On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Maybe something like this would do: "We will attempt to maintain support
>>>of each major version for 3 years after its release, although this will
>>>not always be possible. After that time any major support requirement is
>>>likely to result in support being ended."
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>This sounds reasonable to me ... I think it is more then most software
>>projects do, isn't it?
>>
>>
>
>To translate that into reality: 7.2 (2002-02-04) would be dead already,
>and 7.3 (2002-11-27) will be dead around the time we are likely to
>release 8.1.
>

It doesn't say we must drop it, it says we can after 3 years (or 1
release + 2 years if you like) without any troubles of conscience. ISTM
that we could and possibly should keep supporting it until it appeared
some major patch was required that was too much work or too dangerous.

Remember, many people don't want to jump onto a release right away - I
know of large enterprises that have a policy not to use the .0 version
of anything. So a 3 year cycle is more likely to be a 2 1/2 year cycle
in reality. Then factor in testing and migration time and the production
life in the field between deployment and end of life might be only about
2 years. That's plenty short enough, especially as we still don't have a
nice pg_upgrade utility.

cheers

andrew