Re: NEWS file
Hello,
I have spend some time on reading about changelogs. In GNU terminology
ChangeLogs are files describing changes in the source code [1] [2].
That is already handled for us by Git, we don't need that. And that's
also the reason why many projects don't create ChangeLogs anymore.
What we want is a NEWS file (in GNU terminology) [3]. This file should
describe shortly most important user-visible changes.
If you are curious, run:
$ find /usr/share/doc -name NEWS
I like this one:
/usr/share/doc/xz-5.0.1/NEWS
I would like to have a similar file inside AutoQA. At the same time we
can stop writing out changes into autoqa.spec. Spec file should
describe only changes in packaging, not in source code. And our change
descriptions were too commit-specific anyway.
I have created a draft how could these files look like:
http://kparal.fedorapeople.org/autoqa/NEWS
http://kparal.fedorapeople.org/autoqa/autoqa.spec (see just %changelog
section)
Note that the NEWS file is end-user oriented (full sentences, just
most important stuff, more readable that commit log) and very similar
to what I posted to my blog as the release announcement. That's the
goal.
I haven't went far into the past when creating the entries, I don't
see much sense. Similarly for autoqa.spec, we incorrectly bumped
release number in the past for new autoqa releases. Deleted, ancient
times available via Git. (I imagine the %changelog section is used for
new RPM builds to display changelogs. If it is not the case, I would
delete the whole section altogether, you can always see the data from
Git).
If there are no objections I'll commit the changes and adjust the
Release Process wiki page.
Kamil
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changelog
[2] http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Change-Logs.html
[3]
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/NEWS-File.html#NEWS-File
I love when there are no concerns :-) Pushed as 00de5d4e3f757e9149f0376fe883bb7e433bedae
.