Question on updating Ada's changelog

Question on updating Ada's changelog

[Fernando Oleo Blanco]

Hello everybody,

this is my first time sending anything to GCC. If there is anything
wrong with the message, please, point it out.

TLDR;
Ada (one of the supported languages by GCC) has not appeared in the
changes page since GCC 8, and even then and before it, its presence was
minimal. I would like to update the changelog to include its mayor
changes. What is the recommended procedure and how far could it be taken
(such as updating changes in older versions)?

Ada has seen tremendous amount of work in the past few years, but that
has not been reflected on the changes.html [1] since GCC 8. I would like
to update the changes.html to better reflect the state of Ada's
development, specially since a lot of work has been done on Ada 202X
(which will most likely become 2022). There have been some mayor changes
too, such as the deprecation of ASIS support since GCC 11.

So, my question is, can I just send a patch (to the patches ML) of the
changes.html page to update Ada's non-existent entry? And could this be
done for older versions which have already been released, such as GCC
11, 10 and 9? If older releases' changes.html cannot be updated to
reflect the changes that took place on them, could those changes be
included for GCC 12?

I am aware that it is recommended that whoever submits patches, should
have signed the legal prerequisites. But since this patch would not
contain any significant changes (just listing what has already been
done), I suppose that there should be no problem on me submitting it
directly.

Thank you,


[1] GCC's 11 changes page for reference
https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-11/changes.html

--
Fernando Oleo Blanco
https://irvise.xyz

Re: Question on updating Ada's changelog

[Jonathan Wakely]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2021 at 09:44, Fernando Oleo Blanco wrote:
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> this is my first time sending anything to GCC. If there is anything
> wrong with the message, please, point it out.
>
> TLDR;
> Ada (one of the supported languages by GCC) has not appeared in the
> changes page since GCC 8, and even then and before it, its presence was
> minimal. I would like to update the changelog to include its mayor
> changes. What is the recommended procedure and how far could it be taken
> (such as updating changes in older versions)?

The /gcc-N/changes.html pages live in the wwwdocs repository, separate
from the actual GCC sources. That means there is no problem updating
them after a release (unlike the doc files actually shipped in the
release, which can't be changed after the release, because they've
already been released).


> Ada has seen tremendous amount of work in the past few years, but that
> has not been reflected on the changes.html [1] since GCC 8. I would like
> to update the changes.html to better reflect the state of Ada's
> development, specially since a lot of work has been done on Ada 202X
> (which will most likely become 2022). There have been some mayor changes
> too, such as the deprecation of ASIS support since GCC 11.
>
> So, my question is, can I just send a patch (to the patches ML) of the
> changes.html page to update Ada's non-existent entry?

Yes, exactly.

The wwwdocs repo is documented at https://gcc.gnu.org/about.html#git

A change to those pages should be sent to the gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list like any other patch for GCC. You should include
"wwwdocs" in the email Subject so people know to pay attention (or
ignore it as appropriate!)

I would recommend also CCing one or more Ada maintainers, as they are
the ones most likely to know if your proposed changes to the release
notes are correct.



>And could this be
> done for older versions which have already been released, such as GCC
> 11, 10 and 9?

Yes, that's fine. It's obviously better if the release notes are
complete when the release happens, but better late than never.

> If older releases' changes.html cannot be updated to
> reflect the changes that took place on them, could those changes be
> included for GCC 12?
>
> I am aware that it is recommended that whoever submits patches, should
> have signed the legal prerequisites. But since this patch would not
> contain any significant changes (just listing what has already been
> done), I suppose that there should be no problem on me submitting it
> directly.

Yes, it seems unlikely your changes would be copyrightable, since they
would just be collating publicly available facts. In any case, GCC no
logner requires a copyright assignment for contributions, see
https://gcc.gnu.org/dco.html for another option.

Re: Question on updating Ada's changelog

[Arnaud Charlet]

> The wwwdocs repo is documented at https://gcc.gnu.org/about.html#git
> 
> A change to those pages should be sent to the gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org
> mailing list like any other patch for GCC. You should include
> "wwwdocs" in the email Subject so people know to pay attention (or
> ignore it as appropriate!)
> 
> I would recommend also CCing one or more Ada maintainers, as they are
> the ones most likely to know if your proposed changes to the release
> notes are correct.

Exactly. Feel free to cc: me on such patches and thanks for your (future)
contribution!

Arno

Re: Question on updating Ada's changelog

[Fernando Oleo Blanco]

On 20.10.21 12:01, Arnaud Charlet wrote:
>> The wwwdocs repo is documented at https://gcc.gnu.org/about.html#git
>>
>> A change to those pages should be sent to the gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org
>> mailing list like any other patch for GCC. You should include
>> "wwwdocs" in the email Subject so people know to pay attention (or
>> ignore it as appropriate!)
>>
>> I would recommend also CCing one or more Ada maintainers, as they are
>> the ones most likely to know if your proposed changes to the release
>> notes are correct.
>
> Exactly. Feel free to cc: me on such patches and thanks for your (future)
> contribution!
>
> Arno
>


Hi Arnaud, do I have permission to take/copy the code examples from
AdaCore's blog entries? I could not find a "copy"right section or
disclaimer. I know this is a very minor detail, but still. It would save
me quite a bit of time :)

Regards,
--
Fernando Oleo Blanco
https://irvise.xyz

Re: Question on updating Ada's changelog

[Arnaud Charlet]

> Hi Arnaud, do I have permission to take/copy the code examples from
> AdaCore's blog entries? I could not find a "copy"right section or
> disclaimer. I know this is a very minor detail, but still. It would save
> me quite a bit of time :)

Yes, that’s fine.

Arno