Re: Back-branch releases upcoming this week

On tis, 2011-09-20 at 10:28 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> I don't think we've yet decided what the policy means if a release
> happens during the stated calendar month, which seems rather likely
> this time around in view of our historical record of doing updates
> roughly quarterly. Should we settle that detail now? That is,
> does "after December" really mean "in or after December", or did we
> really mean "after"?

The policy states that we will support branches until that time, which
should reasonably include the whole time period stated. That is, 8.2 is
supported until December 31.

But it does not say that we are obliged to make another release after
the EOL with all the patches that have accumulated between the previous
release and the EOL. And it certainly does not say that we are obliged
to keep patching after EOL until that next release happens. It does say
that that would "normally" happen, but it doesn't have to. Previously,
we have argued that we should make another release because the previous
patching effort would otherwise have been wasted. Maybe so. But let's
keep this in perspective. If we made another release on December 13, we
shouldn't have to keep patching after that, unless there is an
emergency.