Re: REFERENCES privilege should not be symmetric (was Re: [GENERAL] Postgres Permissions Article)

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 4:45 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> In short, it seems like this statement in the docs is correctly describing
>> our code's behavior, but said behavior is wrong and should be changed.
>> I'd propose fixing it like that in HEAD; I'm not sure if the back branches
>> should also be changed.

> Sounds reasonable, but I don't see much advantage to changing it in
> the back-branches.

Well, it's a SQL-compliance bug, and we often back-patch bug fixes.

The argument for not back-patching a bug fix usually boils down to
fear of breaking existing applications, but it's hard to see how
removal of a permission check could break a working application ---
especially when the permission check is as hard to trigger as this one.
How many table owners ever revoke their own REFERENCES permission?

            regards, tom lane