Just to avoid any misunderstanding, I didn't mean to imply that Gitlab intentionally submits point releases or promotes them to the HN front page.

But even if that was the case, I don't think there is anything wrong per se with merely submitting to HN. Software releases can, and frequently are, on topic. And a point release that fixes a major security issue may certainly warrant the front page.

This is a complicated issue and every solution I can think of has significant, unacceptable unintended consequences. I also suspect this problem has deep roots in the upvoting behavior of certain kinds of users - it completely baffles me that this submission has over 60 upvotes.