[postgis-devel] PSC Vote: Change PostGIS library name to drop the minor

[Regina Obe]

As discussed in my last note:

https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/postgis-devel/2017-August/026297.html


I would like to drop the minor version in the PostGIS library, but to still
allow developers to run two versions of PostGIS in same PostgreSQL cluster
if they want to , introduce a new configure switch

--use-minor-version

Which defaults to false for 2.4

This is ticketed here:
https://trac.osgeo.org/postgis/ticket/3807

I know Paul grudgingly agreed with me at code sprint  and said he'd make the
change  and strk was okay in IRC with a lot of BUT BUT BUTs.
Dan at code sprint also expressed concern.

I'd like a formal +1 and in particular hear from packagers once and for all
if they see an issue with this;

The reason for this change is as follows:

Most postgresql extensions do not version their library file name, as such
it's much easier for upgrades to be done using pg_upgrade from one
PostgreSQL version to next.

A lot of packagers do not like carrying more than one version of PostGIS for
each PostgreSQL which means PostGIS users using packages can't easily
pg_upgrade from one PostgreSQL to another
and also leaves us with the onerous task of supporting newer versions of
PostgreSQL on older PostGIS.  Which is a great maintenance burden.

By dropping the minor thence forward from PostGIS 2.4 on, the lib file will
be simply called   postgis-2 (.so,.dll, whatever) and we will be more free
to release as we need to without forward supporting new versions of
PostgreSQL on old versions of PostGIS, which is becoming increasingly
frustrating as rate of PostgreSQL change goes.

Note the PostGIS version would still be 2.4.0 or 2.4.1 etc, 
so the  ALTER EXTENSION postgis UPDATE 

would still need to be done and align the scripts with the lib.


If Per chance we make such a serious change to PostGIS lib by
dropping/renaming critical function that the new .so could possibly crash
the backend with old postgis scripts.  
I highly doubt it (though strk thinks it's possible) and yet such a serious
change does not require a dump reload of the database, we can have the new
version be called postgis-2b.


+1  for this change


I'd really like to hear from packagers what they think of this idea, as this
is being done mostly for them so they don't have to deal with users
constantly complaining about how they can't do pg_upgrade.


Thanks,
Regina