Re: Lifecycle of PostgreSQL releases

Tom Lane wrote:
> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
>> I can't really argue for 8.2 versus 8.3, but I can argue that as 8.3 is
>> literally around the corner, it may make sense to wait.
>
> Today is the ides of March ... while the most optimistic estimate I've
> heard for 8.3 release is high summer. Maybe that's just around the
> corner by some time scales, but I strongly counsel the OP not to try to
> hold his breath till then.

Well I guess that comes back to user requirements. Some general non
tested statistics:

1. More people will run 8.3 than 8.2. Why? Because 8.3 will be in the
wild as current stable longer than 8.2.

2. Red Hat ES will likely never ship 8.2, ES 5 shipped with 8.1. That
means more yet even more people will run 8.1 versus 8.2 (which doesn't
argue for 8.3 but does argue against 8.2)

3. Ubuntu Dapper, which is LTS (like ES) ships with 8.1, the next LTS
will ship with 8.3 (likely).

4. Novell SUSE, shipps 8.1.5 in 10.2, 10.3 is going to ship with 8.3
(unless 8.3 slips horribly)

4. Solaris (JoshB help me here), ships with 8.1.

The trend here is that although 8.2 is a good release, people won't see
the benefits of 8.2 until they install 8.3 or 8.4. Further, because
people are going to wait (we are talking generally here).

It just doesn't make sense, to go through an entire upgrade cycle over
multiple machines just to upgrade to what will likely be obsolete
(because 8.3 will be out) by the time he works out all the kinks of the
upgrade in the first place.

Not everyone will agree, and that's cool. If he wants to upgrade, have
at it.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> regards, tom lane
>
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