On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Noah Slater <[email protected]> wrote: > Looping in Dirkjan as our active RM. > > Relevant part of our release procedure: > > http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Release_Procedure#Preparing_the_Release_Notes > > Template release notes: > > https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=couchdb-admin.git;a=blob_plain;f=notes/template.html;hb=HEAD > > Relevant instruction from the release procedure: > > "Go through the CHANGES file and copy each section and summary." > > The RM should then send the following template email: > > https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf?p=couchdb-admin.git;a=blob_plain;f=email/request_notes.txt;hb=HEAD > > Looks like that wasn't sent for 1.6.0.
Right. I kind of merged that into the SCHEDULE email, where I said: > I will use these release notes: > > http://www.apache.org/dist/couchdb/notes/1.6.0/ > > (Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements.) Part of the problem with the current release procedure is that it is not factored well enough into interrupts that drive the schedule. E.g. the RM has to prepare candidate, then wait for the vote. After the vote, call for binaries and wait for those. In this case, the section of the procedure describing the release notes stuff comes after the section describing how to prepare binaries (which I generally don't do as an RM). So it's kind of easy to skip. Also, I believe in the past not many people wanted to have much to do with crafting the release notes (most people IIRC wanted to generate them automatically from commit messages). I think the current form is a bit more friendly, so I spend time each release to go over each commit in the release, pick out things that are slightly more relevant/noticeable and describe them in a user-friendly way. I'm not sure what you guys want to add beyond what we have now (or who is going to spend time to add it), but I think a small prompt that the release notes have been prepared should be enough to prompt it. Adding whatever needs adding to the relevant What's New documentation chapter might be even better, and can be done at any time by anyone. Cheers, Dirkjan
