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Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 10:39:51 +0200
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: About Cygwin announcements
Message-ID: <20050908083951.GB5555@calimero.vinschen.de>
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References: <20050908072916 DOT GZ5555 AT calimero DOT vinschen DOT de> <20050908081215 DOT 6C12683D23 AT pessard DOT research DOT canon DOT com DOT au>
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On Sep  8 18:12, Luke Kendall wrote:
> CVS: ------- Is this change worth noting in the package changelog? -----
> CVS:
> CVS: Enter Log.  Lines beginning with `CVS:' are removed automatically
> CVS:
> CVS: Modified Files:
> CVS:    some-filename
> CVS: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Do you see what I mean?

There's a misconception here.  You're assuming that the net distro
packages are all located in some CVS repository which is under our
control, which it isn't.  95% of the packages is maintained by
non-Cygwin maintainers all around the world, the packages are not
necessarily kept in CVS or, FWIW, any SCCS and the Cygwin specific
patches created by the Cygwin maintainers are in some cases not even
accepted upstream.

The information you want to see is most of the time available in
a NEWS or ChangeLog file in the source repository.  If the Cygwin
package maintainer thought of it, then you might find these files
somewhere in /usr/share/doc/$package/ but that's not generally
the case.

It also might be a good idea to enforce "better" announcements with
more information than just "Updated", which is something I'm trying
for myself.  However, you know how enforcements work.  First, they
are contrary to human nature (so called "laziness").  Then the
maintainer's point of view what's interesting or important might be
quite different from the user's point of view, leading to lots of
information you're absolutely not interested in.  At last, enforcements
don't work by themselves.  http://cygwin.com/acronymns/#SHTDI

Bottom line, while my personal laziness demands that people tell me all
about their stuff so I don't have to look myself, I think that it's 
actually my own responsibility to keep informed about the features of
the software I use.  Thorough and easily consumptiable information
in announcements is a courtesy of the maintainer, and it doesn't get
me out of my responsibility to keep informed myself.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat, Inc.

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