Re: Hash out a solution for ChangeLog/NEWS at the Cauldron?

[Mike Frysinger <vapier at gentoo dot org>]

i won't be at cauldron (out of the country)

i'm still strongly in favor of getting rid of ChangeLogs entirely.  i have
yet to find a scenario where the git commit itself did not contain all the
details that i needed, or that really the ChangeLog file itself provided
literally any value at all.  in a historical context (CVS), it might have
made more sense, but that hasn't been the case for years.

i know GNU projects tend to be set in their ways though, so even moving to
something like other GNU projects (coreutils/etc...) where the notes are in
the git commit message and then the ChangeLog file is autogenerated would
be a big step forward.  relying on git-merge-changelog is pure craziness.

i don't think merge commits are needed.  they add noise and doing a rebase
loses no real information of value (slightly adjusted commit date and the
original parent).

updating the bug list in the NEWS file is annoying, and as it is written
now, adds no value imo.  a huge list of random numbers that literally no
one looks at is a waste of all our time.  if we could push that data into
the bug tracker and then have a script to autogenerate the chunk for the
NEWS file, that'd be much nicer.

a simple straw man to illustrate what i'm thinking:

* The following bugs are resolved with this release:

  [BZ #438] _POSIX2_C_VERSION got missing
  [BZ #18007] (CVE-2014-8121) nss state sharing causes application denial of 
  service
-mike

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