PG 19 release notes and authors
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com
Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.
On Sat, 4 Apr 2026 at 16:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.
If it's not the "Co-authored-by" tag, how else would a project of a
non-committer cooperating with a committer be tagged?
Publicly, the guidance for commit tag usage seems to be [0]https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance
"Co-authored-by:" is used by committers when they want to give
full credit to the named individuals, but also indicate that they
made significant changes.
Removing that committer's "full credit to the named individuals" seems
out of place to me.
Kind regards,
Matthias van de Meent
Databricks (https://www.databricks.com)
[0]: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance
On 4 Apr 2026, at 17:06, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com> wrote:
Publicly, the guidance for commit tag usage seems to be [0]
"Co-authored-by:" is used by committers when they want to give
full credit to the named individuals, but also indicate that they
made significant changes.Removing that committer's "full credit to the named individuals" seems
out of place to me.
Agreed, as a committer I want the persons listed as co-author in the git log to
be credited in the release notes.
--
Daniel Gustafsson
On 4 Apr 2026, at 19:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.
Speaking of co-authors - I think they absolutely should be included in the
release notes credits.
The more recognition we give contributors, the more motivation newcomers
have to join the development community. There are edge cases where a feature
gets reverted in a later minor release, but those are rare. What matters
is that we need a steady stream of new contributors, and crediting everyone's
work - including co-authors - is one of the most effective ways to
encourage that.
Best regards, Andrey Borodin.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 11:19 AM Andrey Borodin <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru> wrote:
On 4 Apr 2026, at 19:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.Speaking of co-authors - I think they absolutely should be included in the
release notes credits.The more recognition we give contributors, the more motivation newcomers
have to join the development community. There are edge cases where a
feature
gets reverted in a later minor release, but those are rare. What matters
is that we need a steady stream of new contributors, and crediting
everyone's
work - including co-authors - is one of the most effective ways to
encourage that.
+1, and additionally encourages collaboration among contributors.
Thanks,
Satya
On 04.04.26 17:06, Matthias van de Meent wrote:
On Sat, 4 Apr 2026 at 16:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.If it's not the "Co-authored-by" tag, how else would a project of a
non-committer cooperating with a committer be tagged?
Two Author tags.
Hi,
On April 4, 2026 5:56:01 PM EDT, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:
On 04.04.26 17:06, Matthias van de Meent wrote:
On Sat, 4 Apr 2026 at 16:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.If it's not the "Co-authored-by" tag, how else would a project of a
non-committer cooperating with a committer be tagged?Two Author tags.
That's not how I understood its use so far, and I'm surely not alone in that. We could rephrase this in the wiki page, but we can't go back and edit the commit messages...
Greetings,
Andres
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 11:18:33PM +0500, Andrey Borodin wrote:
On 4 Apr 2026, at 19:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.Speaking of co-authors - I think they absolutely should be included in the
release notes credits.The more recognition we give contributors, the more motivation newcomers
have to join the development community. There are edge cases where a feature
gets reverted in a later minor release, but those are rare. What matters
is that we need a steady stream of new contributors, and crediting everyone's
work - including co-authors - is one of the most effective ways to
encourage that.
This is the same argument we have had for ages, accuracy vs
encouragement.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com
Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 06:16:10PM -0400, Andres Freund wrote:
Hi,
On April 4, 2026 5:56:01 PM EDT, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:
On 04.04.26 17:06, Matthias van de Meent wrote:
On Sat, 4 Apr 2026 at 16:50, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
In the PG 19 commits, I am seeing several commits with Author and
Co-authored-by tags. FYI, I think we agreed that only the Author names
are mentioned as the authors in the release notes.If it's not the "Co-authored-by" tag, how else would a project of a
non-committer cooperating with a committer be tagged?Two Author tags.
That's not how I understood its use so far, and I'm surely not alone in that. We could rephrase this in the wiki page, but we can't go back and edit the commit messages...
The wiki page says:
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Commit_Message_Guidance
Author:
Co-authored-by:
Used to indicate the patch authors. "Co-authored-by:" is used by
committers when they want to give full credit to the named individuals,
but also indicate that they made significant changes.
but I am seeing many cases where there is an Author tag, who is not the
committer, and also Co-authored-by tags in the same message. That does
not follow the wiki text.
I need to know what to do for PG 19, and what to do for later major
releases. I think Peter's point is why are people using Author and
Co-authored-by in the same commits, and not just two Authors.
I thought we had this resolved but looking at the PG 19 commits,
obviously not.
To clarify, I assume Co-authored-by would appear in the Acknowledgments
section at the bottom of the major release notes, e.g.:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/release-18.html#RELEASE-18-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com
Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 7:27 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
This is the same argument we have had for ages, accuracy vs
encouragement.
If that is the new policy, my policy will be to never use the
Co-authored-by tag, except perhaps for my own name. If I don't think
someone deserves authorship credit, then I just won't list them as an
author in the commit message.
Given how the tag is apparently being interpreted, the only scenario
where it still seems useful to me personally is one where I make
substantial revisions to a patch but, for whatever reason,
specifically do not think I deserve a full authorship credit. Which,
to be fair, doesn't seem too implausible. The need for substantial
revisions isn't an inherently good indicator of whether the original
patch author deserves authorship credit in the release notes.
Performing such revisions probably shouldn't be automatic grounds for
committers to receive a release notes credit.
In such a scenario, where I list myself using the Co-authored-by tag,
the tag is useful because it avoids a weird mixed signal. It would be
strange not to acknowledge that I technically wrote much of the code
in the committed patch; what if my code had a bug that the original
code didn't? At the same time, the tag avoids giving me more credit
than I deserve, which is what I'd want to happen when I choose to use
the tag (I'd want that out of a sense of fairness).
What I'm saying here boils down to this: I don't think it's sensible
to expect the use of a specific tag variant (or even the order in
which author names appear) to convey much useful information. I really
hope nobody reads too much into my choices in this area.
--
Peter Geoghegan
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 10:02:40PM -0400, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 7:27 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
This is the same argument we have had for ages, accuracy vs
encouragement.If that is the new policy, my policy will be to never use the
Co-authored-by tag, except perhaps for my own name. If I don't think
someone deserves authorship credit, then I just won't list them as an
author in the commit message.Given how the tag is apparently being interpreted, the only scenario
where it still seems useful to me personally is one where I make
substantial revisions to a patch but, for whatever reason,
specifically do not think I deserve a full authorship credit. Which,
to be fair, doesn't seem too implausible. The need for substantial
revisions isn't an inherently good indicator of whether the original
patch author deserves authorship credit in the release notes.
Performing such revisions probably shouldn't be automatic grounds for
committers to receive a release notes credit.In such a scenario, where I list myself using the Co-authored-by tag,
the tag is useful because it avoids a weird mixed signal. It would be
strange not to acknowledge that I technically wrote much of the code
in the committed patch; what if my code had a bug that the original
code didn't? At the same time, the tag avoids giving me more credit
than I deserve, which is what I'd want to happen when I choose to use
the tag (I'd want that out of a sense of fairness).
Yes, that was the original purpose. Basically, if a commit has no
"Author" tag, the committer is assumed to be the author. If there is an
"Author" tag, the committer is not assumed to be the author. If there
is an Author tag and the committer wants author credit, they must add
their name as an author. If the committer wants to indicate they
changed the patch, and potentially added bugs, but doesn't want credit,
the wiki says to use Co-authored-by.
What I'm saying here boils down to this: I don't think it's sensible
to expect the use of a specific tag variant (or even the order in
which author names appear) to convey much useful information. I really
hope nobody reads too much into my choices in this area.
Well, I don't care what we decide, but we should decide something. You
can say they don't convey information, but I need to put something in
the release notes, so they are forced to have some effect.
What confuses me are cases where Authors are not the committer and
Co-authored-by are not the committer. This combination is not
documented in the wiki, which makes me think people are using
Co-authored-by in ways that are inconsistent or I don't understand.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com
Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 10:13 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
Yes, that was the original purpose.
I didn't actually know that. That's likely my own fault. (OTOH I
haven't actually used the new tag at all, at least not yet.)
Basically, if a commit has no
"Author" tag, the committer is assumed to be the author. If there is an
"Author" tag, the committer is not assumed to be the author. If there
is an Author tag and the committer wants author credit, they must add
their name as an author. If the committer wants to indicate they
changed the patch, and potentially added bugs, but doesn't want credit,
the wiki says to use Co-authored-by.
Got it. That makes sense to me (obviously, since I already said that
that's the only policy that could possibly be useful).
What I'm saying here boils down to this: I don't think it's sensible
to expect the use of a specific tag variant (or even the order in
which author names appear) to convey much useful information. I really
hope nobody reads too much into my choices in this area.Well, I don't care what we decide, but we should decide something. You
can say they don't convey information, but I need to put something in
the release notes, so they are forced to have some effect.
I think that Co-authored-by should either: 1. have a specific
mechanical purpose (like affecting how the release notes are written),
OR 2. not exist at all.
What's the point, otherwise? It just doesn't make sense to have a
Co-authored-by that merely conveys a general vibe. These things are
inherently squishy and subjective. Pretending otherwise would be a
mistake (to be clear I'm not suggesting that you or anybody else has
made that mistake).
--
Peter Geoghegan
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 10:29:15PM -0400, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 10:13 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
Yes, that was the original purpose.
I didn't actually know that. That's likely my own fault. (OTOH I
haven't actually used the new tag at all, at least not yet.)
Yes, that is what I used it for in the past.
Basically, if a commit has no
"Author" tag, the committer is assumed to be the author. If there is an
"Author" tag, the committer is not assumed to be the author. If there
is an Author tag and the committer wants author credit, they must add
their name as an author. If the committer wants to indicate they
changed the patch, and potentially added bugs, but doesn't want credit,
the wiki says to use Co-authored-by.Got it. That makes sense to me (obviously, since I already said that
that's the only policy that could possibly be useful).What I'm saying here boils down to this: I don't think it's sensible
to expect the use of a specific tag variant (or even the order in
which author names appear) to convey much useful information. I really
hope nobody reads too much into my choices in this area.Well, I don't care what we decide, but we should decide something. You
can say they don't convey information, but I need to put something in
the release notes, so they are forced to have some effect.I think that Co-authored-by should either: 1. have a specific
mechanical purpose (like affecting how the release notes are written),
OR 2. not exist at all.What's the point, otherwise? It just doesn't make sense to have a
Co-authored-by that merely conveys a general vibe. These things are
inherently squishy and subjective. Pretending otherwise would be a
mistake (to be clear I'm not suggesting that you or anybody else has
made that mistake).
Yes, that was the argument --- Co-authored-by should have some purpose
because making it behave like Author has little value.
--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com
Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.