Thoughts on how to structure the release notes...

Toshio toshio at tiki-lounge.com
Mon Feb 16 22:23:18 UTC 2004


warning: a tad long
warning2: just my two cents. read with a grain of salt. disclaimers ad
nauseum

On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 15:35, Edward C. Bailey wrote:
>     My plan (for Fedora Core 2 Test 2) is to structure the release notes to
> use the following list of groups.  That doesn't mean every one of these
> groups will be present in the release notes -- only that, if something
> needs to be said about a given package, that content will be put in the
> release notes, under a heading reflecting that package's group.
> 
I like the idea of more structure.  I don't know if I agree with using
comps.xml for groups, though.  My usage of the release notes is to read
them before the install.  They inform my decisions about what software I
want on my system, which software I can do without, and which software
will try to replace software I already use.  I want to see major
sections of exciting/important architectural changes with subsections
dealing with specific things that went into making this happen.  So I
would like groups based on changes to the distro rather than groups
based on lists of programs. (Ie: selinux group w/ description of selinux
and how packages have changed/been added to make this work.)

That might be a lot more work though as it requires a human to decide
what the overall themes are and construct how those themes fit with the
changes in the features of indiidual packages.

If a package-based scheme is adopted, I think the groups should be
thought out a little more.  Even though the release notes are a flat
file, there should be a hierarchy to it (So emacs, xemacs, and editors
can be together; development tools and ruby; etc)  If a group has too
many worthy changes, then subsections can be broken out.  If not, then
keep the changes together so the grouping reduces the number of things
I'm thinking about rather than increases it.

Once again, just my two cents.  I'm sure I'll find useful whatever
format is produced.

-Toshio
-- 
Toshio <toshio at tiki-lounge.com>





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