While working on the 3.5.2-alpha release, I noticed that CHANGES.txt in trunk is not completely synchronized with the 3.5 release line. In branch-3.5, we have sections for releases 3.5.0, 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 (added by me), each indicating their respective release dates. In trunk, release 3.5.0 is mentioned, but not release 3.5.1. I have not yet added anything about 3.5.2, because I wasn't sure if the omission of 3.5.1 was an oversight or intentional.
More generally, it appears that on any given branch, CHANGES.txt does not comprehensively cover the prior major release lines. On branch-3.5, CHANGES.txt mentions release 3.4.0, release 3.3.0, etc., but not any of the subsequent releases in those lines, like the recent 3.4.8. Is this something we need to correct? Is it even worthwhile to keep maintaining CHANGES.txt, or is it not worth the effort? FWIW, other projects like Hadoop and HBase have abandoned maintaining CHANGES.txt files and instead rely on the revision log for patch attribution and various forms of automation for generating release notes. --Chris Nauroth
