On 04/13/2014 02:25 AM, gregor herrmann wrote: > > (The git history + d/changelog don't say why I changed this in 2011, > I guess it was a similar request :))
And now you know why I am always so nitpicky about changelogs :). As someone who has been reviewing several dozen packages over the past 18 months when sponsoring them, I have seen many packages where the debian/changelog had many useless or virtually empty entries. Things like "Fix a minor bug in xyz" or "Fix bug #133222" aren't really what you'd expect from a changelog. Instead, a proper changelog entry should include exactly what changes were made and why there were made, e.g.: * Add missing build dependency on libabc-dev. Fixes FTBFS on powerpc. (Closes: #122333) * Add debian/patches/0001-hardening.patch to pass proper compiler and linker flags necessary for hardening. Just providing the bug number isn't helpful either. Some older bugs I have searched for aren't actually accessible through the bug tracker anymore. And, even if the bug number is included, there is no guarantee the bug report actually documents the cause of the bug or the changes that were made to remedy it. Some bug reports don't even include any discussions besides the original bug report and the automated message which closed the bug when the fixed version was uploaded. So, in order to avoid situations like these in the future, please write proper changelogs, people! Your future self or the future maintainer of your package will be very glad to have them. It can save you or them lots of time digging through mailing list archives, commit histories and similar resources. And, while you're at it, please use proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, indentation and avoid trailing spaces :). PS: If you're maintaining your packages source in git, just use git-dch to create a nicely formatted and complete changelog entry including all changes since the last package revision. It usually just involves some additional editing since git-dch doesn't wrap lines after 80 characters (which lintian will complain about), for example (I should file a bug against git-dch, maybe). Thank you! Adrian -- .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz : :' : Debian Developer - glaub...@debian.org `. `' Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaub...@physik.fu-berlin.de `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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