Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 01:12:28 -0500,
Jon Stanley <jonstanley@gmail.com> wrote:
> I consider this to be common sense, but it's not in the guidelines
> right now - that changelog entries are immutable. To that end, I have
> a really simple draft up here for revision of the guidelines to
> explicitly state that.

What happens when you make a mistake? Say you enter an incorrect date in
a changelog. There should be some way to fix this.
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

I consider this to be common sense, but it's not in the guidelines
right now - that changelog entries are immutable. To that end, I have
a really simple draft up here for revision of the guidelines to
explicitly state that.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jstanley/Changelog_Draft
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On 01/25/2010 01:12 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
> I consider this to be common sense, but it's not in the guidelines
> right now - that changelog entries are immutable. To that end, I have
> a really simple draft up here for revision of the guidelines to
> explicitly state that.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jstanley/Changelog_Draft

I am against making this a steadfast requirement. This should be stated
as a strong recommendation.

I often want to make corrections to previous changelog entries. I
sometimes want to remove irrelevant changelog entries, usually only
cases like "Rebuild for rawhide libfoo-1.2.3" when I have that spec in
sync with previous Fedora/RHEL releases and that changelog entry is
irrelevant/incorrect for other distros.

Warren Togami
wtogami@redhat.com
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:10 AM, Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> wrote:

> What happens when you make a mistake? Say you enter an incorrect date in
> a changelog. There should be some way to fix this.

Changed the draft wording to be a little less harsh, allowing for
these sorts of things.
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Warren Togami <wtogami@redhat.com> wrote:
> I often want to make corrections to previous changelog entries.

This is now allowed for in the draft, with the "obvious error" exception.

> I sometimes
> want to remove irrelevant changelog entries, usually only cases like
> "Rebuild for rawhide libfoo-1.2.3" when I have that spec in sync with
> previous Fedora/RHEL releases and that changelog entry is
> irrelevant/incorrect for other distros.

But those are, as you state, "other distros". Each branch of Fedora
(and arguably RHEL, but I have no influence in internal RHT guidelines
obviously) should have a unique spec file. To do otherwise is to
rewrite history. FESCo recently dealt with exactly this issue, and
took a quite dismal view on it. (though in that case it was a script
that was obliterating changelog entries).
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On 01/25/2010 01:33 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
> But those are, as you state, "other distros". Each branch of Fedora
> (and arguably RHEL, but I have no influence in internal RHT guidelines
> obviously) should have a unique spec file. To do otherwise is to
> rewrite history. FESCo recently dealt with exactly this issue, and
> took a quite dismal view on it. (though in that case it was a script
> that was obliterating changelog entries).

I dispute the assertion that all branches of Fedora must necessarily
have different spec files.

Warren
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On 01/25/2010 07:12 AM, Jon Stanley wrote:
> I consider this to be common sense, but it's not in the guidelines
> right now - that changelog entries are immutable. To that end, I have
> a really simple draft up here for revision of the guidelines to
> explicitly state that.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jstanley/Changelog_Draft

Firstly, I don't understand which issue your are trying to solve.

Secondly, I am opposed to that change, because besides the issues,
others already mentioned ("mistakes" etc), we once had a discussion on
this topic (IIRC, on @devel, several years ago), which had concluded
into "maintainers are advised to trim changelogs/delete obsolete and
irrelevant changelog entries" to keep changelogs readable.

Ralf



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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 01:33:57AM -0500, Jon Stanley wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:17 AM, Warren Togami <wtogami@redhat.com> wrote:
> > I often want to make corrections to previous changelog entries.
>
> This is now allowed for in the draft, with the "obvious error" exception.
>
> > I sometimes
> > want to remove irrelevant changelog entries, usually only cases like
> > "Rebuild for rawhide libfoo-1.2.3" when I have that spec in sync with
> > previous Fedora/RHEL releases and that changelog entry is
> > irrelevant/incorrect for other distros.
>
> But those are, as you state, "other distros". Each branch of Fedora
> (and arguably RHEL, but I have no influence in internal RHT guidelines
> obviously) should have a unique spec file. To do otherwise is to
> rewrite history. FESCo recently dealt with exactly this issue, and
> took a quite dismal view on it. (though in that case it was a script
> that was obliterating changelog entries).

Please provide a pointer to this issue. The issue that comes to my
mind[0] was mainly about reverting changes that other maintainers than
the owner performed on spec files.

Imho it is valid for a maintainer to mainly develop the spec file in
devel and use it for the other branches as well.

Regards
Till

[0] https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/298
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Item for FPC consideration - changelogs
 

On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 01:12 -0500, Jon Stanley wrote:
> I consider this to be common sense, but it's not in the guidelines
> right now - that changelog entries are immutable. To that end, I have
> a really simple draft up here for revision of the guidelines to
> explicitly state that.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jstanley/Changelog_Draft
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> packaging mailing list
> packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/packaging

I'd like to see another exception, trimming out an automated rebuild
entry. These don't really add much to the history of the package, no
change to the package was made, and it does cause inconsistencies across
the Fedora releases when these specs are kept in sync.

And yet another exception, trimming the history for brevity. We don't
really need rpm changelogs dating back to 1995 for some of these
packages.

I think it would be worth stating the /reason/ why we discourage
changing changelog entries, as opposed to just saying "YOU MUST NOT DO
IT" and expecting the maintainer to reach a logical conclusion as to
why. When you give them the why, you enable them to consider that why
with what it is they desire to do and make a reasonable informed
decision about their action.

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