Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 22:41:49 -0800
> Cc: ofv@wanadoo.es, Ingo Lohmar <i.lohmar@gmail.com>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > Find a better and more reliable way of dealing with the problems described
> > here, and I'll be the first to agree not to reintroduce ChangeLogs.
> 
> As far as I understand so far, we have only a few needs. If I've understood
> incorrectly, please let me know, as this thread has wandered in a few places.
> 
>  1. We need a way to ensure quality commit messages from contributors.
>  2. We'd like to be able to correct commit messages after the fact.
>  3. We need a convenient way to both create and access this information.
>  4. We want to publish the history of these commit messages in the tarball.
> 
> The ChangeLog file and its format are one implementation of these needs that
> has worked over the years. Are you saying that if we move to something else,
> and it fulfills these criteria, you'd be just as happy with it?

Yes.

However, putting on my system engineer hat, let me make sure the list
of requirements covers all the aspects:

 5. The "history of commit messages" produced in 4 above should
    resemble a ChangeLog file (ideally, it should use the same
    format).
 6. The solution should allow manual generation of the "history" file
    mentioned in 4, on demand, in reasonably short time, even if the
    repo clone does not include a built Emacs.  (It is okay to use the
    installed Emacs binary, if necessary.)
 7. The solution should support Git workflows we allow: merging
    between branches, rebasing local changes on upstream,
    cherry-picking from another branch, reverting a commit, tagging a
    commit, and amending an unpushed commit.  "Support" here means
    that the solution should not impose limitations on these
    workflows, and the steps for updating whatever databases the
    solution will use should not require additional manual work as
    result of using these workflows.

(I'm not saying these additions are something non-obvious, I just
want to make sure we have everything covered.)