Problem/Motivation
Following on from #2846994: Increase minimum version requirement for Postgres to 9.5.x we need to decide how to treat PostgreSQL 9.x (or 10.x) support.
PostgreSQL has a Versioning Policy.
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group supports a major version for 5 years after its initial release. After its five year anniversary, a major version will have one last minor release containing any fixes and will be considered end-of-life (EOL) and no longer supported.
PostgreSQL 9.5 has support until February 11, 2021
PostgreSQL 9.6 has support until November 11, 2021
PostgreSQL 10 has support until November 10, 2022
PostgreSQL 11 has support until November 9, 2023
PostgreSQL 12 has support until November 14, 2024
Proposed resolution
Option 1. Increase the explicit requirement for PostgreSQL version each time support for the previous version has been dropped. This will prevent the next minor release from installing on the version that has no support, and show a warning on any existing installs.
Advantages:
- very clear cut off point
Disadvantages:
- prevents using Ubuntu LTS releases that still backport security fixes to the older version.
Option 2.Disable automated testing etc., but don't actually increase the requirement in code (except possibly to show a hook_requirements() warning if we add that). This will allow people running older PostgreSQL versions to keep doing so, but we won't accept bug reports etc. for anything specific to that version. The hard requirement may be added once a dependency relies on a PostgreSQL N feature though.
Advantages:
- allows people on Ubuntu LTS to keep going if they want to
Disadvantages:
- less clear warning for people self-hosting who haven't updated
- could result in bug reports specific unsupported PostgreSQL versions which require triaging.
Remaining tasks
Track PostgreSQL ecosystem
Distros
- Debian
- 9 (17th june 2017): Ships with 9.6
- 10 (6th july 2019): Ships with 11
- Ubuntu
- 16.04 (21 th april 2016): Ships with 9.5
- 18.04 (26th april 2018): Ships with 10
- 20.04:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- 6 (10th november 2010): Ships with 8.4
- 7 (10th june 2014): Ships with 9.2
- 8 (7th may 2019): Ships with "10 and 9.6 via modules"
PostgreSQL
- 8.4 released on 1st july 2009
- 9.2 released on 10th september 2012
- 9.5 released on 7th january 2016
- 9.6 released on 29th september 2016
- 10 released on 5th october 2017
- 11 released on 18th october 2018