Delete ChangeLog files Was :Re: ChangeLog change to .ChangeLog

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 03/06/2013 04:20 PM, Gedare Bloom wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:47 PM, Joel Sherrill <joel.sherrill at oarcorp.com> wrote:
>> On 3/5/2013 2:41 PM, Chris Johns wrote:
>>>
>>> Sebastian Huber wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 02/28/2013 01:30 AM, Gedare Bloom wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I think the git log is superior to manual ChangeLog entries, and we
>>>>> can produce
>>>>> higher level changes/news reports separately. Probably there is some
>>>>> way to
>>>>> either dump the log or selected entries when making a tar or offline
>>>>> distribution. This is something we can consider.
>>>>>
>>>> Yes, the ChangeLog files are an anachronism.
>>>>
>>> I suggest we remove them. Git's log command with '--grep' provides the
>>> same thing as 'grep * ChangeLog'.
>>>
>>> If you take a look at ...
>>>
>>>     http://www.rtems.org/ftp/pub/people/chrisj/rm-changelogs/
>>>
>>> This directory has a text file which is the output of the script and the
>>> script. The left column of the text file is the line number in the
>>> ChangeLog so you can check the entry against git manually. The script
>>> checks each entry in all ChangeLog files against git's log command with
>>> grep and 2063 entries out of 14707 did not match. I manually checked a
>>> few entries and it seems a range of reasons exist for the differences.
>>> For example a single ChangeLog entry is 2 commits, or take this one ...
>>>
>>> 5045: 2010-04-29 Sebastian Huber <sebastian.huber at embedded-brains.de>
>>>
>>> The ChangeLog has "PR 1507" and the commit has "PR1507". I suspect most
>>> of the failed matches will be due to these types of reasons.
>>
>> I am perfectly fine with removing them all.
>>
>> They represent duplicate information and provide no value.
Correct, git duplicates the logs.

>> In fact, at this
>> point,
>> they are dangerously out of date. That is deceptive.
They are rotten due to people not having maintained them.

> If the ChangeLog entry text is by and large replicated already in the
> git log, then I see no reason to keep the files hanging around
> bit-rotting.
Again, ... the git-logs are a temporary internal implementation detail, 
the ChangeLog files are legal documents.

Git is like your employer carrying your working contract's data in their 
internal database - The only document that counts is the version you 
have printed.

> IMO the commit history of the project is more important for
> establishing RTEMS timeline than the changelogs. If anyone needs to
> recreate this data they can dump the git log and make some format they
> prefer.
Untrue.

> We do need to provide useful notes about big changes within the core,
> and about all user-visible changes. These should be tracked in release
> notes, which currently I think are consolidated on a wiki page.