[oi-dev] Moving on with postgresql

[Andreas Wacknitz]

Am 17.04.21 um 23:46 schrieb Gary Mills:
> OI currently has postgresql versions: 95 96 10 11 12 .  The OI
> default, in shared-macros.mk, is 95 .  However, the postgresql
> developers report that 95 is unsupported, but 13 is available and
> supported.  Something has to change in OI to move forward with
> postgresql.
>
> Here are some actions that could be taken with OI.  We could change
> the default version to 10.  I, myself, would prefer 11.  We could
> obsolete 95.  I'd prefer obsoleting 95 and 96.  We could add version
> 13, but only after 96 is obsoleted.  We should limit the number of
> postgresql versions in OI, after all.  Finally, we could make no
> obsoletions or additions, retaining even the unsupported 95.  Which
> would you prefer?
>
> I have not investigated two questions.  Perhaps you can tell me?  What
> are the consequences of obsoleting 95?  What are the consequences of
> the default change?
>
>
You are right, removing PostgreSQL-9.5 is overdue.
And yes, we should think about reducing the number of PostgreSQL
versions we support because of our limited man power.
Furthermore, we (at least I) don't know who is really using PostgreSQL
and what version is being used.

Changing the settings to a newer version and removing 9.5 (and whatever
else) is only the first step.
The 2nd step is to republish all depending packages with the new default
version. What versions can be obsoleted and removed
depend on this step: we might need to update/patch or remove dependant
packages if they don't build with the newer default version anymore.
To find out which packages depend on postgresql isn't hard, but it might
be a lot more work to find out what needs to be done to update all of them.
Both steps need to be prepared and then executed right after each other
(but serially).