Release DataFusion `51.1.0` (Minor)

[alamb]

Is your feature request related to a problem or challenge?

Follow on to

• Release DataFusion 51.0.0 (Nov 2025) #17558

@timsaucer mentioned yesterday he was thinking about a 51.1.0 release, and there are some things that we may way to backport into the 51.0.0 line, and this ticket tracks doing so

Steps:

• Update version and changelog
• Test with DataFusion Python
• Test with DataFusion Comet
• Test with delta.rs:
• Test vortex:
• Test with iceberg-rust:
• Test with LakeSail:
• Test with parquet viewer
• Test with datafusion-materialized-views
• Voting Thread:
• Publish to crates.io

Potential Content:

Bug Fixes

• Major bug: Partial AggregateExec correctness issue dropping rows #18701

Minor Features:

• Implement CatalogProviderList in FFI #18657

[Omega359]

arrow 57.1.0 ? Or should we wait a bit to let arrow-rs bake a bit more?

[alamb]

arrow 57.1.0 ? Or should we wait a bit to let arrow-rs bake a bit more?

In theory, we shouldn't have to do anything to DataFusion 51.0.0 to be able to use arrow 57.1.0 as it is semver compatible (and @etseidl and I are madly testing to make sure this is true):

• Release arrow-rs / parquet Minor version 57.1.0 (November 2025) arrow-rs#8464

I do think several tests will need to be updated to get them to pass with arrow 57.1.0 (see #18820) but I am not sure if we should do that or not

[tobixdev]

If we're creating a 51.1.0 version I can create a PR for back porting #18903 .

[alamb]

If we're creating a 51.1.0 version I can create a PR for back porting #18903 .

I think it is quite likely we'll make a 51.1.0 -- I just don't know when we will release it.

@tobixdev it would be great if you made the backport PR and we'll get it merged and be ready to go