ChangeLog change to .ChangeLog

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 02/27/2013 12:06 PM, Chris Johns wrote:
> Thomas Doerfler wrote:
>>
>> I think the name should be changed to something, that describes its
>> meaning, e.g. "Changelog_pre2012" "ChangeLog_pre_git" or something
>> similar.
>>
>
> My understanding is the ChangeLog info is the check in comments and
> these are all in the git repo so something like 'git log
> --grep="Cleanup"' searches the changes. It does not help someone who has
> a released source tar file and no connection to the internet and so the
> git repo. Is that a reality these days ?
>
> What value do they offer ?

* VCS-independent information about the origins and dates of 
changes/sources (Who/What/When/Why). Such information is valuable and 
can become important in cases of legal issues (Prior art/use, who 
used/stole whose code)

* Executive summary style of user information about what was changed 
when. This is important when retrofitting upstream changes into forks.

* VCS-independent information. Manually written ChangeLogs files are 
invariant against VCS screw ups/break downs/changes etc.

> Can they be deleted ?
IMO, never.

To the contrary, IMO automatically generated ChangeLogs are mostly 
worthless. They need to be written manually, because they are legal 
documents.

Another aspect, which might not be far spread, but which underlines the 
importance of ChangeLogs: The FSF recently (IIRC, since January) has 
added Copyright noticed to their ChangeLogs.

Ralf