On 05/09/2011 11:43 AM, Robert Haas wrote:
>> Interesting. You could argue that once 8.3 is our earliest supported
>> release that we could even shrink the support window because the
>> argument "I can't dump/reload my data" would be gone.
> Personally, I think the support window is on the borderline of being
> too short already. There are several Linux distributions out there
> that offer 5-year support for certain releases.
Some (RH?) offer significantly longer periods.
I agree that we should not reduce the support window. The fact that we
can do in place upgrades of the data only addresses one pain point in
upgrading. Large legacy apps require large retesting efforts when
upgrading, often followed by lots more work renovating the code for
backwards incompatibilities. This can be a huge cost for what the suits
see as little apparent gain, and making them do it more frequently in
order to stay current will not win us any friends. I often want to wait
a while after a release for certain customers, while it beds down, and
to get them to start moving towards upgrading well before it's the last
minute. That makes an effective life of four years or less per release
as things are now. That's plenty short enough.
cheers
andrew