changelog entries or "Editing history" (was: Take over of texinfo/info packages)
Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br> wrote:
> Hi, Norbert.
>
> On Oct 03 2005, Norbert Preining wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 Okt 2005, Rogério Brito wrote:
>> > If you actually make a new package (and I see that you'll do), please
>> > don't call it -1 like you did with cm-super and cm-super-x11. Please,
>> > keep the annotations on the changelog, even if they were not submitted
>> > to the Debian system.
>>
>> Frank, any comments on this? What would you prefer? I am really free
>> in this and wouldn't mind having a -7 or -1.
>
> I don't know what Frank prefers, but I see that this is quite common
> with other Debian Developers: more so with those that are employed to
> work on Ubuntu: you frequently see the changelogs of their packages
> containing breezy as the distribution (which, as you may know, is not
> the codename of any Debian distribution so far).
>
> I think that this way of doing things keeps people informed and prevents
> the problems that you would have to have if you change the version
> numbers too much.
I took the location on the tug.org server as only a testing place,
similar to private apt-gettable places that often sponsored non-DDs
offer for prospective sponsors. I think that everybody who used these
packages must be aware that they are experimental, and that they should
read at least the announcements, if not the respective lists.
Therefore I don't care much about different packages with the same
version number and stuff like that. Anyway it will resolve itself as
soon as some -2 enters the Debian archive.
On the other hand, I agree that changelog entries should not be tweaked
too much in most cases. Whether this means that you simply append lines
to the changelog of the yet unreleased, but publically available
version, or whether you create separate versions is a matter of
convenience. If the "other" version actually was used, like in the
Ubuntu case, it should of course get its own number; if the changes were
just because a reviewing sponsor critized something, and were made on
the same day without an announcement, I wouldn't use a separate version
number. texinfo, having many testers interested in texlive, lies
somewhere in between.
Apropos "should not be tweaked in most cases": I think that changelogs
should be readable and informative to the interested user, not just to
developers. Therefore I plan to replace the changelog history of the
teTeX-3.0 packages in experimental by only one entry that summarizes the
changes happening to unstable - after all, that's the history as the
main Debian archive sees it. The experimental changelog will be kept in
a separate file.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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