Re: PG 19 release notes and authors

Hi,

On 2026-04-05 16:09:57 +0200, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2026-Apr-05, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> > I just updated the wiki to handle this case because obviously
> > Co-authored-by is listing more than just committers:
> >
> > https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance#Tags%3A_%22%3A%22
> > Used to indicate the patch authors. "Co-authored-by:" should list
> > individuals who modified the patch but should not be listed as
> > authors in the release notes.

I think that is a completely unwarranted change for which there is zero
concensus.

> I don't see in what way this is useful. Why do you want to suppress
> people from getting credit for the work they do? Having changed the
> commit guidance this way, I think no committer would use Co-authored-by
> at all.

+1

> > I am not sure PG 19 follows this, but we might want to follow it going
> > forward.
>
> More and more I am getting the feeling that the commit guidance is
> actually misguided. The document itself is not very good (I mean, why
> use XML-lookalike to represent a commit message, which is regular
> English prose??); and I don't feel it represents actual consensus.

I think a more useful format would be something that can sensibly get used as
a git commit template (mine has tags I commonly use that I just delete when
not used).

> > A larger issue is that since we now have links to the commits in the
> > release notes, there might no longer be a need to list _any_ names next
> > to the release note items.
>
> I don't understand your motivation for saying things like these.

+1

Greetings,

Andres Freund