Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com>]

On Dec 16, 2007, NightStrike <nightstrike@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/15/07, Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:
>> ... a good example of compliance with the GPL:
>> 
>> 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
>> 
>> a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
>> it, and giving a relevant date.

> Maybe Changelogs should be reserved for important changes.  For
> instance, something like "Fixed a typo" is a complete waste.  I doubt
> anyone looks ta a Changelog to see if someone fixed a typo recently or
> at any point in the past.

I've done that, while backporting patches.  Oftentimes there are small
fixes on top of larger patches, and you want to credit those who made
the small fixes, and you want to be sure you caught them next time you
look at the patch.  ChangeLogs for these are useful for this purpose.

> Perhaps there could be some criteria so that not every single iota
> gets a log entry.

How would leaving changes out comply with 5a above?

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}