On Tue, 24 Feb 2009, Juergen Weigert wrote:
On Feb 24, 09 16:55:27 +0100, anicka@suse.cz wrote:
Hello!
I would like to discuss here one aspect of our changelog policy.
Unlike other distributions, we have an unusual rule for our RPM changelogs (.changes file): when updating to the new version, we must process an upstream changelog and copy the most important things to RPM changelog. I would like to discuss this policy and its problems and benefits.
I completely agree with Anicka.
$ rpm -q --changelog is a useful tool for *really* comparing packages. Often the pakage version number is unchanged, but an important patch was added. In this case, our changelog is the only source of information.
For version updates, the full upstream changelog is relevant. Shortening to a 10 line excerpt may cut away the one bit of information that a user wanted to know.
I'd suggest to allow a URL-reference to the upstream changelog as replacement for the excerpt.
I don't agree with you at all. In the rpm changelog 'Update to new
upstream version 1.2.3' is short and enough. If a packager adds
local patches this needs to be (and is) mentioned in the rpm
changelog.
What I would like to see (and I see we are atm pretty bad at it) is
to enforce a basic set of documentation for each package that is
put in /usr/share/doc/packages/$NAME. In this place there
belongs 1) license information (for legal reasons even),
2) upstream provided README / NEWS / ChangeLog (which one of those
are relevant or even useful varies heavily from package to package,
so it's up to the maintainer to choose). 3) if there is SUSE specific
modifications, like configuration changes, there should be a
README.SUSE file.
rpm -q --changelog is absolutely not a convenient place for
such information.
Richard.
--
Richard Guenther