Draft: simple update description guidelines

[Michael Schwendt]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:37:08 +0000, Richard wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-01-28 at 09:06 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > The following are a set of simple guidelines for the update descriptions 
> > > via bodhi (which is used by PackageKit to inform users of what has 
> > > changed). These guidelines are intended to help end users understand the 
> > > nature of changes in the update better. Bodhi is not used in rawhide, so 
> > > these guidelines are not applicable for rawhide updates. Note that this 
> > > is not connected to the rpm changelog.
> > -1, simply nuts

Silly and nuts!
 
> By saying "simply nuts" I assume you've not talked to any real users.
> 
> This IS useful:
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/hwdata-0.222-1.fc10

It's a lousy cut'n'paste job without much benefit for Joe User.
Just skim over the "Details". Intimidating!

> This IS NOT useful:
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/gromacs-4.0.3-2.fc10

Agreed. It's too brief, in particular since Bodhi doesn't display
the previous pkg EVR and no %changelog diff either.

> If we want to push our platform forward as "easy to use" and "suitable
> for new users" then this sort of thing is very important.

No, because they won't cherry-pick updates anyway. They expect the
package maintainers (== the distribution vendor) to offer updates
that just work.

On the contrary, what would be important to mention are the possible
risks of applying an update.