Reordering in package changelogs (was Re: rawhide report: 20100129 changes)

[David Malcolm]

On Fri, 2010-01-29 at 15:45 +0000, Rawhide Report wrote:

[snip]

Looks like whatever generates this report is reordering items in the
changelog relative to the %changelog in the specfile, but in some
surprising ways; is this a known issue?

Normally the items in a %changelog are in order most-recent through
least-recent.

But in this report, see e.g. how 2.2-9 appears, then 2.2-10:
> audacious-2.2-10.fc13
> ---------------------
> * Thu Jan 28 2010 Michael Schwendt <mschwendt at fedoraproject.org> - 2.2-9
> - Let set_tuple_cb() work on a copied tuple
>   (the metadata updates flood is too racy IMO).
> - Fix tuple_copy().
> 
> * Thu Jan 28 2010 Michael Schwendt <mschwendt at fedoraproject.org> - 2.2-10
> - Fix tuple_copy() further (it was completely broken as the mowgli
>   dict wasn't copied at all).
> 


Likewise 2.0.78-15 then 2.0.78-16:
> policycoreutils-2.0.78-16.fc13
> ------------------------------
> * Thu Jan 28 2010 Dan Walsh <dwalsh at redhat.com> 2.0.78-15
> - Add use_resolve to sepolgen
> 
> * Thu Jan 28 2010 Dan Walsh <dwalsh at redhat.com> 2.0.78-16
> - Cleanup spec file
> Resolves: 555835

Up to that point, it looks like a reversal.

Here's where it gets weird:
0.6.10-1 then 0.6.10-2 then 0.6.9-4 then 0.6.9-2 seems an arbitrary
ordering:

> python-setuptools-0.6.10-2.fc13
> -------------------------------
> * Fri Jan 29 2010 Toshio Kuratomi <toshio at fedoraproject.org> - 0.6.10-1
> - Update the python3 portions but disable for now.
> - Update to 0.6.10
> - Remove %pre scriptlet as the file has a different name than the old
>   package's directory
> 
> * Fri Jan 29 2010 Toshio Kuratomi <toshio at fedoraproject.org> - 0.6.10-2
> - Really disable the python3 portion
> 
> * Tue Jan 26 2010 Toshio Kuratomi <toshio at fedoraproject.org> - 0.6.9-4
> - Fix install to make /usr/bin/easy_install the py2 version
> - Don't need python3-tools since the library is now in the python3 package
> - Few other changes to cleanup style
> 
> * Fri Jan 22 2010 David Malcolm <dmalcolm at redhat.com> - 0.6.9-2
> - add python3 subpackage

[snip]

And here's another one with a non-monotonic ordering:

> valgrind-3.5.0-14.fc12
> ----------------------
> * Wed Jan 20 2010 Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat.com> 3.5.0-13
> - DW_OP_mod is unsigned modulus instead of signed
> - fix up valgrind.pc (#551277)
> 
> * Wed Jan 20 2010 Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat.com> 3.5.0-14
> - fix build against latest glibc headers
> 
> * Mon Dec 21 2009 Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat.com> 3.5.0-12
> - don't require offset field to be set in adjtimex's
>   ADJ_OFFSET_SS_READ mode (#545866)
> 
> * Wed Dec 02 2009 Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat.com> 3.5.0-10
> - add handling of a bunch of recent syscalls and fix some
>   other syscall wrappers (Dodji Seketeli)
> - handle prelink created split of .bss into .dynbss and .bss
>   and similarly for .sbss and .sdynbss (#539874)

Any ideas?  Known problem?

Thanks
Dave