Re: Reports on obsolete Postgres versions

On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 4:38 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:

> https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/
>
> This web page should correct the idea that "upgrades are more risky than
> staying with existing versions". Is there more we can do? Should we have
> a more consistent response for such reporters?
>

It could be helpful to remove this sentence:

"Upgrading to a minor release does not normally require a dump and restore"

While technically true, "not normally" is quite the understatement, as the
true answer is "never" or at least "not in the last few decades". I have a
hard time even imagining a scenario that would require a minor revision to
do a dump and restore - surely, that in itself would warrant a major
release?

> It would be a crazy idea to report something in the logs if a major
> version is run after a certain date, since we know the date when major
> versions will become unsupported.
>

Could indeed be useful to spit something out at startup. Heck, even minor
versions are fairly regular now. Sure would be nice to be able to point a
client at the database and say "See? Even Postgres itself thinks you should
upgrade from 11.3!!" (totally made up example, not at all related to an
actual production system /sarcasm)

Cheers,
Greg