Unhelpful update descriptions

[John.Florian at dart.biz]

> From: Jaroslav Reznik <jreznik at redhat.com>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Michael Catanzaro
> > <mike.catanzaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Perhaps the update policy should have a guideline on the minimum
> > > amount
> > > of information required in this description. E.g. "update to latest
> > > upstream version" might be a perfectly acceptable description for
> > > Fedora
> > > given the fast pace of updates, but I don't think users should ever
> > > be
> > > seeing "no update information available" and especially not "here
> > > is
> > > where you give an explanation of your update." (And I've seen this
> > > one
> > > multiple times within the past couple of weeks.)
> > 
> > I tend to agree here.  That being said, most of my package updates
> > are
> > something along the lines of "Update to upstream 2.5 release" --
> > would
> > you find that descriptive enough, or still lacking in detail?
> 
> From the time, Kevin sent me a message in a style of "One more such
> update description and I'll will come to Brno to k*ll you" I'm 
> trying to provide better description. But it really depends on
> quality of upstream Changelogs. Sometimes it's just really hard
> to write more than "update to latest upstream version x.y" :(
> 
> Jaroslav

I've often wanted to see better descriptions too.  When in admin mode, it 
would be nice to be able to only have to 'rpm -q --changelog foo' to get 
what I need.  Links to upstream changelogs would be very acceptable.

You've made an excellent point here why these are often rather vague. It's 
very easy to forget the Fedora is merely packaging upstream and is not 
always upstream.

It does seem that there's been a trend forming lately where the rpm's 
changelog is covering only what's happened as far as the packaging itself 
goes and less about the software being packaged.  Maybe that's all the rpm 
changelog should ever be?  Less useful for what I need, yes, but also more 
truthful by not providing a false impression.
--
John Florian
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