Promote receiver.prometheusreceiver.EnableNativeHistograms to beta

[dashpole]

Component(s)

receiver/prometheus

Describe the issue you're reporting

The feature gate was added in #28663, and released with v0.98.0.

This issue tracks the graduation of this feature to beta.

The prometheus feature is still considered experimental: https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/blob/ea75bc18e94cc10abe7de0eb226a0100feaa254e/docs/feature_flags.md#native-histograms.

However, there are some reasons we may want to graduate this feature to beta before Prometheus moves it out of "experimental":

• The protobuf format for native histograms in prometheus is stable, so the Prometheus datamodel is unlikely to change.
• The OTLP exponential histogram data model is also stable, so the mapping between data models is highly unlikely to change.
• Users can still use fixed-bucket histograms by setting the always_scrape_classic_histograms configuration in their scape config.

cc @krajorama @ArthurSens for thoughts.

@open-telemetry/prometheus-interoperability

[github-actions]

Pinging code owners:

• receiver/prometheus: @Aneurysm9 @dashpole @ArthurSens @krajorama

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[ArthurSens]

I think it makes sense to promote it already, I don't see any reasons not to 🤔

[krajorama]

Does it mean that the feature gate is enabled by default? Or just a statement on stableness? If the later, then I'm ok with it.

[krajorama]

Actually, the receiver doesn't handle native histograms with custom buckets correctly right now, so I/we should fix that first.
Created issue: #41131

[ArthurSens]

Does it mean that the feature gate is enabled by default? Or just a statement on stableness? If the later, then I'm ok with it.

It would be enabled by default. So the fact that it doesn't handle NHCB is enough to make the call "let's not move it beta right now"

[krajorama]

Does it mean that the feature gate is enabled by default? Or just a statement on stableness? If the later, then I'm ok with it.

It would be enabled by default. So the fact that it doesn't handle NHCB is enough to make the call "let's not move it beta right now"

Also, it's a breaking change as you'd lose classic histograms, unless you enable always_scrape_classic_histograms.