If upstream changelogs become supported, I have a patch for makepkg to allow a changelog() function in PKGBUILD to generate the changelog at packaging time (from VCS messages, for instance). Let me know if it becomes relevant, or if a task comes up where I can post it.
/Emil On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Karol Blazewicz <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Jerome Leclanche <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi list >> >> The subject came up at FOSDEM on a packaging discussion. I thought >> it'd be worth bringing up here. >> Pacman has extremely basic and non-advertised support for changelogs. >> These are maintainer changelogs, not upstream changelogs, and seem to >> be completely useless. In fact, in my 900~ package install, only iotop >> and zsh-syntax-highlighting have a changelog at all and they all list >> "Updated to release ...". > > Many packages that ship them, don't have an up to date changelog e.g. > https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/community.git/plain/trunk/ChangeLog?h=packages/volwheel > The consensus is (or at least was half a year ago) that such > changelogs should be removed https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/37105 > >> >> My personal recommendation, and what makes the most sense, is to allow >> for (and highly recommend) upstream changelogs. If there is a >> changelog file, that can be displayed in pacman -Qc (regardless of its >> format). >> There is also the subject of online-only changelogs. Should they be >> downloaded, or should -Qc display "Read the changelog at http://...";? >> My first thought is that's up to the packager/maintainer, they would >> know better on a per-package basis. > > There's https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/33960 > >> >> Debian is really good with its packaging changelogs. Afaik they're the >> only distro that properly uses them. They're a lot less relevant to >> arch linux due to the very nature of the distro ("trust upstream") but >> I don't think they're useless; in fact, we should probably distinguish >> packaging and upstream changelogs. >> Final question is, what of the syntax? I have a few things in mind but >> I'd like to hear whether such changes would be welcome at all first. >> >> Cheers >> >> J. Leclanche >> >
