I don't see much value in a release notes file. I think this kind of approach gets ignored and sets up a bad situation where release managers assume that notes are up to date when they aren't. That leads to poorer quality release notes. I think it is reasonable either to use the set of changes that is already available through github, or to have the release manager curate notes.
There may be some ways to tag specific PRs that should be in the notes to make the job easier, but I think it is up to the release manager to ensure that notes are compiled. On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 1:57 PM Daniel Weeks <dwe...@apache.org> wrote: > I'm not a big proponent of adding additional process to > PRs/contributions. It's very hard to enforce consistently and then we get > the worst of both where there are missing contributions and someone still > needs to wade through and diff at the time of release. > > I find the automated release notes > <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.0>to > be very helpful and if they were grouped by component, that would help > categorize the changes better so people can find what they're interested > in. Stripping out the build/dependency updates really narrows things down > as well. > > This seems like a case where an AI summary would be much nicer > than putting the burden on the contributors. > > Just my thoughts, > -Dan > > On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 11:15 AM Ajantha Bhat <ajanthab...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> While working on the recent release, I noticed that preparing the release >> notes is currently a manual process, requiring the release manager to >> review each commit between releases. This approach is not only >> time-consuming but can also delay the release announcement. >> >> To improve this, I would like to propose maintaining a *release notes >> highlights file*, where we update the highlights as part of each PR. >> Committers can help by reminding authors to update this file when >> submitting their PRs. >> This process could also make it easier to prepare highlights for >> community syncs and pave the way for more automated releases in the future. >> >> I have created a sample PR to illustrate this idea: >> https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/12924 >> >> I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! >> >> - Ajantha >> >
