Re: Updates lacking descriptions

[Kevin Kofler <kevin kofler chello at>]

Richard Hughes wrote:
> The people on this mailing list know what a ChangeLog is, and how to
> read one. These people (real people, not geeks) do not know what a
> ChangeLog is: http://www.packagekit.org/pk-profiles.html
>
> Like somebody else said in the discussion, just because we are
> amateurs doesn't mean we can't look professional. If we want to say
> "Linux is ready for end users" we need to get out of the geek mindset.

That's why the update notes should be a user-readable list of changes, 
either provided by upstream (and linked to or pasted in) or summarized by 
the packager.

An FSF-style changelog, e.g.:

2009-04-01  Some Upstream Developer <some upstream developer example com>

        * foo.c (foo_bar): Change ultraconductivity to 4.

is indeed entirely useless in the update notes. Instead, they should 
SUMMARIZE what changed FROM A USER'S point of view.

And if people don't even care about the user-friendly summary, nobody forces 
them to read it.

        Kevin Kofler