[arch-general] changelogs (was Re: postgresql 9.3 -> 9.4)

[Lukas Fleischer]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 at 16:08:02, Carl Schaefer wrote:
> The thread about the postgresql update reminded me of one of the few
> things about Ubuntu that I miss: package updates usually included a
> useful changelog entry describing what was fixed and/or new.  Perhaps I
> assume too much, but I imagine Arch package maintainers would generally
> be aware of the changes in an update they're making, and so it wouldn't
> be much additional work to include that information in a changelog
> entry.
> 

It actually *is* much additional work. Bumping the package version
usually takes ~5 seconds. That does not include the time to build and
test the package but we don't need to watch the build process and
packages are often tested by using them in production. So, compared to
those five seconds, looking up every single change and coming up with a
change log is a lot of time -- and it usually doesn't pay off, apart
from corner cases. Please examine the mailing lists, this story has been
discussed several times already. Keeping bureaucracy to a minimum is one
of the reasons we can provide updates much faster than other
distributions.

While I agree that warnings and front page news should be given where
appropriate, I cannot comment on PostgreSQL, which I don't use. As it
seems to be a similar process on every major update and there even seems
to be a script to warn you, I don't see any need for another notice,
though. As a database administrator, you should be aware of what happens
when you update the DBMS. Maybe some post-upgrade message would be
helpful...

> When I first started using Arch I'd hoped "pacman -Qc" would do this,
> but at this point only three of the 867 packages on my system have a
> changelog, and most of those entries are just "version bump" or
> equivalent.
> Carl
> 
>