[Pkg-postgresql-public] Dropping postgresql 8.3 for squeeze

[Dimitri Fontaine]

Luk Claes <luk at debian.org> writes:
> This would not work without rebuilding everything in testing which would
> create a chicken and egg problem: we want to have everything tested and
> build in unstable before migrating it to testing...

Ok. So what you want is automated-without-rebuild packages migration
from unstable to testing to stable (at release time for this last
step).

What we have now is unstable and testing supporting more than one
PostgreSQL version at the same time, but stable only one version, for
fear of having to support the code in debian with no help for upstream,
who choosed to support their major versions only for 5 years.

  http://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning
  http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_Release_Support_Policy

What we have too is extensions that are source compatible to several
PostgreSQL major versions, typically working from 8.X onwards.

What I want to find is a way for us extension packagers to implement
automatic support for several PostgreSQL major versions packages without
editing our packages and desuporting versions at stable release time.

This might look strange for the debian project itself but please
consider that switching a production server from stable to next stable
seldom means upgrading PostgreSQL alongside. So we *need* to have the
extensions available for old-major somewhere too, like backports or some
other volunteer provided hosting.

Providing the extensions for 8.3 for stable when this version is no more
the official one should not require volunteers to edit or remake the
packaging.

Can we get to some solution, pretty please? I can understand you don't
like my suggestion on the grounds that you want no rebuild between
testing and stable. But we need to find a way.

Regards,
-- 
dim

PS: I surely do not intend to fix my packages by desuporting 8.3, even
if that means they don't get into squeeze when it's labelled
stable. Having them hosted outside of debian will be less work and
maintenance.