Jason Stubbs wrote:
I seem to be repeating myself... What's an example of repository-specific
non-package-specific news? Why does `emerge --changelog` not suffice for
package-specific news?
a) maintainers don't put important news in their changelogs.
there are a few exceptions. gregkh's udev bumps, for example, always
come with an explanation of what changes have been made and what to
watch out for. but mostly all the info you're going to get is "Version
bump.", if that.
b) there's no way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
while i could (and usually do) emerge every update with -l, it's not
something anyone with a life would do. the signal to noise ratio is
very low, and not many people are going to go through reading the
changelogs for every package on the odd chance that there might be some
important nugget of info they need to know. combine this with a) and
you'd have better luck playing the lottery than getting pertinent
information that specifically applies to you.
c) it's a passive system
the user has to actually make an effort to retrieve this news. we
_already_ have a number of different sources that they could be getting
important info from. another is not what's needed. what we're looking
for is a proactive solution where the news is dropped at their feet
below a bigass neon arrow saying READ ME.
d) news isn't necessarily package-based.
news items could be based on a user's profile, language preference,
architecture, USE flags, etc. there could also be general news to the
entire community about global changes in Gentoo.
--de.
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