Re: Please ship changelogs in your tarballs

[Benjamin Otte <otte gnome org>]

Dodji Seketeli <dodji <at> seketeli.org> writes:
> I personaly find
> ChangeLogs quite valuable for situations where people have the source
> packages (like a distribution DVD) but not necessarily an access to the
> internet and want to understand when/how something changed. I found
> myself in such a situation not very long ago and I was very happy to
> have a proper ChangeLog around.
> 
Hrm, in 90% of the cases where I need information about why changes were made, I
need git blame/cvs annotate style output, and a ChangeLog cannot give me this
information. (Also, the tools to filter ChangeLogs suck, or are there
equivalents to git log -- $file?)

So I think it would be a lot better if instead of just generating a ChangeLog,
we would ship the full git history in the tarball. That way you have a history
that is as useful as possible.

It would also make GPL purists happy, because we'd ship it in the preferred form
of making modifications, which a tarball isn't - even with a ChangeLog.

Benjamin