Re: Skytools committed without hackers discussion/review

> > > > > We allow /contrib to be more lax about beta changes.
> > > > 
> > > > the postgresql ecosystem is growing and there is a lot of people like
> > > > packagers that will be a quite irritated if we keep randomly adding
> > > > completely new code and modules during BETA.
> > > 
> > > Should packagers be concerned with /contrib at all ?
> > 
> > Our users want it. Because we have important features that live there.
> 
> Sure, but some features are also moved from /contrib to pgfoundry, and
> users still may want these too.

Sure. This is why Dave created stackbuilder.

The point is users expect us to ship whatever isincluded in core postgresql, which includes contrib.
> And sure there are features in contrib that "most" users don't want.

Sure. There are features in the backend that most users don't even know about, much less use/want.
> >  
> > > As noted before /contrib is a technical way of ensuring that something
> > > gets updated together with core, not a recommendation to include it in a
> > > "package".
> > 
> > Then why did it get added there with the motivation that a lot of users will want it?
> 
> I think that the main motivation was to ensure that a feature that a lot
> of users will want will be "stable", that is, maintained together with
> core postgres.

IMSHO, this is far from enough motivation to put something in post beta. I could accept it *with* proper discussion,
duringfeature freze. Where the argument of not putting it in contrib, but backend-actual instead, could've been
properlymade.
 

>  exposing stable xid and snapshot to userspace is something needed by
> more than one postgres add-on (Slony1 replication, Skytools universal
> queueing and replication) makes it much easier to develop these packages
> without need to have an extra package to maintain separately from these,
> yet in sync with core postgres.

So, it should be in the backend, not contrib. And since we're past beta, that means 8.4.

If discussion had happened just a day or two before the comit, we could've delayed beta a day to get it in....

/Magnus