Re: [gentoo-project] ChangeLog generation: Edit generated Changelogs

[Fabian Groffen <grobian@gentoo.org>]

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On 17-09-2011 10:01:47 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 5:07 AM, Nirbheek Chauhan <[1]nirbheek@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> 
> I agree. Plus, if we use git-notes to *append* to ChangeLog entries
> (in case you left out important information), we've covered all bases
> as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> If something is REALLY critical that needs to be fixed you can always use a
> hack like adding a line of whitespace or something and re-committing (which
> will work with any scm), but I'd only reserve that for when a changelog
> entry is so factually wrong that it risks a real problem.   
> 
> However, I'd really question whether ChangeLogs are the place to store such
> a critical piece of documentation in the first place.  If it is THAT
> important that users know about a change it should be in news.
> 
> I agree that it seems like we're at the point where "just a little better"
> is becoming the enemy of "already way better than what we have."

I would prefer going this route myself.  Generate all ChangeLogs from
commit messages only.  This is easy to implement (POC is running for
Prefix), but has a little issue with ChangeLog being in Manifest file.
I think we should just omit it, or (better) allow the Manifest to have
multiple signed parts, such that the ebuilds, dists and files are signed
by the committing developer, and the ChangeLog is signed by the
generation process (like snapshots are).

The council has, however, (like Markos' initial mail explained) decided
that ChangeLog entries must be updatable (e.g. corrected) afterwards.
That makes a (ChangeLog) file IMO necessary, and hence nothing can be
done different from making repoman update the ChangeLog itself upon
commit one way or another.  This isn't really new, it's bug #337853.

Note that the latter approach also solves any problems of entry order,
as are forseen when using a VCS like git.


[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=337853

-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

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