Hi, On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 05:17:13PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote: > On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 04:12:04PM -0500, Nathan Bossart wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 04:37:49PM -0400, Bruce Momjian 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? > > > > I've read that the use of the term "minor release" can be confusing. While > > the versioning page clearly describes what is eligible for a minor release, > > not everyone reads it, so I suspect that many folks think there are new > > features, etc. in minor releases. I think a "minor release" of Postgres is > > more similar to what other projects would call a "patch version." > > Well, we do say: > > While upgrading will always contain some level of risk, PostgreSQL > minor releases fix only frequently-encountered bugs, security issues, > and data corruption problems to reduce the risk associated with > upgrading. For minor releases, the community considers not upgrading to > be riskier than upgrading. > > but that is far down the page. Do we need to improve this?
I liked the statement from Laurenz a while ago on his blog (paraphrased): "Upgrading to the latest patch release does not require application testing or recertification". I am not sure we want to put that into the official page (or maybe tone down/qualify it a bit), but I think a lot of users stay on older minor versions because they dread their internal testing policies. The other thing that could maybe be made a bit better is the fantastic patch release schedule, which however is buried in the "developer roadmap". I can see how this was useful years ago, but I think this page should be moved to the end-user part of the website, and maybe (also) integrated into the support/versioning page? Michael