FOSSDLE PieFedWhy did the Lemmy instances stopped upgrading the version they use?
submitted by CoderSupreme
It seems most instances still use version 0.19.3 and the only one using the up-to-date version is lemmy.ml. They used to update relatively fast. What's changed?
Given how long it took to fix the federation issues back in december (0.19 update), I'd be hesitant about updating, too.
But you're on a 0.19.5 instance. Do you experience issues? There's some incompatibility with Mastodon, apparently, but given that 0.19.5 addresses serious privacy issues and has been out for a while without big problems, the privacy fixes are more important than keeping 100% Mastodon compatibility. Surely 0.19.6 will be out soon enough to address them.
At least I personally have not seen any issues in this current release.
0.19.4 requires upgrading Postgres (and exporting/importing the database to the new version).
I just don't have time for that right now since my Postgres DB is on a dedicated machine and is shared with a few other active services.
They make breaking changes like that in patch releases?? Do they not follow semver?
Lol, yeah.
I think they plan to do semvar, but if I recall (and I may be wrong), since it's pre 1.0.0, they're "allowed" to make breaking changes since it's still in alpha.
The lemmy devs are not exactly industry developers.
Hell, they don't even respect gpdr, and one day the EU is going to wreck an instance and maybe an admin too if they didn't separate liability properly.
Technically this is entirely within semver since it's 0.x.y.
this isn't true. it was incorrectly stated in the upgrade guide but has been removed a while ago. it was supposed to be a recommendation due to some issues with postgres 15. there is no postgres upgrade required between 0.19 releases.
Why would you do that, given that Lemmy is 0.x software?
Because I'm not made out of server resources lol. I've already got a beefy server that's dedicated to Postgres and is well tuned, and everything else already hooks into it. I've also had better performance (and less overhead) with one, big well-tuned database versus lots of stack-local databases.
If Lemmy goes tango uniform, then any damage would be limited to its schema. The worst it could really do would be resource starve it, but Zabbix would alert me of that quickly.
My understanding is that postgres doesn't *need* to be upgraded. It'll still work with version 15 or whatever you have. Postgres 15 has some sort of memory leak that they're trying to get away from, so they made 16 the new default.
Same with the "requirement" to upgrade pict-rs to the latest version. You can keep the old version if you don't care about the new image proxy feature.
Really it's a not a problem of needing to upgrade this stuff, but a problem with the documentation which isn't clear. That's a big weak spot for the Lemmy project in my opinion. I only learned the above information from lurking a bit in the Matrix chat.
Good to know. Last time I recall a DB upgrade being mentioned, it was when pg15 became the new minimum so I assumed this was the same case. That one was required since they used some new feature in pg15 (don't recall the specifics, but my test instance that was on pg14 failed the DB migrations for that lemmy release, and that was why)
Ah, interesting. That experience combined with the wording of "this update requires postgres 16", I can see where the confusion comes from.
Interestingly enough, they fixed the documentation. Now it says "We recommend upgrading to PostgreSQL 16 due to a known memory leak in PSQL 15. To use the new image proxy feature, pict-rs version 0.5+ is required." https://join-lemmy.org/news/2024-06-07_-Lemmy_Release_v0.19.4-_Image_Proxying_and_Federation_improvements
Deleted by author
Not true.
Could have sworn I saw a posting saying something to that effect. My bad.
you may have been thinking of https://poliverso.org/objects/0477a01e-1166-c773-5a67-70e129601762, which was neither lemmy devs, mastodon devs nor lemmy.world admins
That was it. Thanks.
What are you looking at because the instance list shows lemmy.ml using a Beta version, and isn't the only one.
Dozens are using 19.5 which appears to be the latest stable version. Consider a couple of recent stable versions caused a lot of headaches for users and admins I think waiting to see if a newer 'stable' version is actually stable, let alone volunteering to test experimental versions in situ is prudent.
Just counted: 6 of the top 10 instances use 0.19.5 or newer. Source: lemmyverse.net with default sorting
We also upgraded fairly quickly and aside from some annoyances with the new image caching it's not worse than 0.19.3, so relatively speaking this was a good upgrade.
Lemmy.zip is on 0.19.5
They've done prod deployments in real life before and hence no longer believe in CD?
I wait a few days or so to see if they're planning on an emergency release to fix new bugs they didn't catch but I've found upgrading fairly easy, though I have a dedicated and fairly bog standard install and a smaller instance.
And Lemmy.ml is managed by one of the devs. And because this instance ist rather self entitled, they don't care about bugs that much
Wait we don't care about bugs because we're self entitled? Gonna need to elaborate on how that one works for me.
Pretty sure they're talking about the devs, not the users
edit: still kind of weird tho
The admins of your instance defend the right of governments to drive over protestors with tanks and that comment is upsetting?
I haven't seen a single admin who's supported the junta fighting student protesters by ramming a tank through their barricades. If you're taking about another, more publicized event I suggest you watch the rest of the footage.
Let me know if you can find the timestamp where it happens
Also the comment wasn't upsetting, it was confusing.