Re: Using more verbose ChangeLog format for GLib and GTK+

[Martyn Russell <martyn imendio com>]

Tor Lillqvist wrote:
>>  I believe we are meant to put the patch author's name on the first line.
> 
> I do that sometimes. Especially if the patch author bothers to include
> a patch for ChangeLog, too (patch authors, please do take this as a
> hint...). But if it is a random smallish one-off patch and I don't
> even know if the author is comfortable with having his/her email
> address in the ChangeLog, I usually just mention the author's name in
> the entry.

Hi,

I tend to use this format for Gossip, mostly because it works nicely
with my maintainer script so that when I release, it picks out all the
bugs and adds either the commit name (by default) or the persons in
brackets after the bug number in the release note I generate
automatically. This way you can obviously see who committed the changes
and who was involved in the change (if anyone else but you).

I wrote the maintainer script with this specifically in mind to ease
Matthias' job when releasing, but I don't think he uses it. Other
projects do and I find it most helpful.

Example changelog:

2007-12-28  Martyn Russell  <martyn imendio com>

	* configure.ac:
	* data/glade/main.glade:
	* libgossip/Makefile.am:
	* src/gossip-account-widget-jabber.c:
	* src/gossip-vcard-dialog.c: Support for libebook to get and set
	personal information when setting up a new account and setting
	your personal information on the Jabber server. Fixes bug 400132
	(Wade Mealing, Brian Pepple, Martyn Russell).

I never substitute the commit name to someone else since it is clearly
wrong and misleading when people look back on the ChangeLog if you
actually committed the change.

I also, don't think having the bug number at the top is always a good
idea. Sometimes (although unlikely and probably bad practise) you fix
more than one bug in the same commit, this format doesn't sit well for
me in such a scenario. Instead, I prefer to have the bug and people
associated with the files and a comment as illustrated above.

Behdad, if you used my maintainer script, you wouldn't have to copy
those bugs from the ChangeLog into the NEWS file either, the script can
do that for you also. It gets the description of the bug from Bugzilla
so there is no need to include it in the ChangeLog either, you can
instead have your own description of what you changed. Often I find bug
titles aren't exactly that informative compared to the ChangeLog too.

-- 
Regards,
Martyn