[postgis-devel] NEWS file cleanup ?

[Regina Obe]

> Daniel Baston
> I've had some confusion about which NEWS files should get an entry for a bug fix. It looks like some fixes are put in the NEWS for all maintained branches, while others are put only in the NEWS for the oldest maintained branch.

I think we should put bug fixes in NEWS for all applied branches, and RCS/betas, but not  .0 micro version .
The .0 version should only have new things and enhancements.  I think most folks assume all fixes that have come have already been applied to it.

Though we tend to release micros around the same time so newer branches should have all the same fixes as the older branches, this is not always the case.
It's also easier for users to just read the NEWS that is relevant to the version they are upgraded to rather than figuring out if a bug they have is fixed or not by reading older branch news.

Anyway we should probably make whatever we decide clear in the dev docs.

> Greg Troxel
> I stand with strk here :-)

> People testing RCs have read the email message announcing the RC, so it
> can be there instead.

2 problems with that.  
1) People don't read our emails.  We'd like to think all folks are on mailing list but only 1% at most are
2) the NEWS file is our mode of communication for PostGIS dev group
  So the email and the blog post is generated from the NEWS file, because whoever is doing the release does not have time to chase down bug fixes to add to the email and blog post.

I suppose what we could do is have an ANNOUNCEMENTS file, but I fear that will become largely redundant with the NEWS and cause more confusion than it helps.

> Also, in the longstandin GNU tradition (which is where NEWS came from)
> bug fixes do not generally belong in NEWS, unless the bug is notorious.
> It's supposed to be about significant changes, like removed and new
> APIs, new user programs, new dependency/compiler requirements, and
>  things those using the program need to adapt to.

I only agree with this for the 0 micro release.
For releases such as 2.5.1, 2.4.5 etc, we don't have that many bugs fixed that we can't just list all of them.
If we were a bigger project like an OS, I would agree.

I don't know about others, but sometimes I skip a micro if I don't want to set aside time for testing/downtime
and I see the NEWS lists nothing I'm suffering from.

Thanks,
Regina