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Bug#666549: mercurial: Please remove the latest NEWS.Debian entry

March 31st, 2012 - 01:00 pm ET by Adrian Bunk | Report spam
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Package: mercurial
Version: 2.1.1-2
Severity: normal

Please remove the latest entry from NEWS.Debian since it
doesn't belong there:

<-- snip -->

mercurial (2.1.1-1) unstable; urgency=low

- pull return code now matches its pre-2.1 behavior


<-- snip -->

OK, so there was a bug in 2.1 that was fixed in 2.1.1.

It would have made sense to put that into changelog.Debian
for people running testing/unstable and using apt-listchanges.

NEWS.Debian is for the rare cases of serious incompatible
changes in a package.

NEWS.Debian is not for listing all bugs that were present
for a month in unstable and then fixed - that is what
changelog.Debian is for.

It is completely pointless that people upgrading from 1.6.4-1
in squeeze will see this entry.

Please remove this entry from NEWS.Debian.

Thanks in advance



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#1 Javi Merino
April 01st, 2012 - 05:30 am ET | Report spam

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 07:52:02PM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
Package: mercurial
Version: 2.1.1-2
Severity: normal

Please remove the latest entry from NEWS.Debian since it
doesn't belong there:

<-- snip -->

mercurial (2.1.1-1) unstable; urgency=low

- pull return code now matches its pre-2.1 behavior


<-- snip -->

OK, so there was a bug in 2.1 that was fixed in 2.1.1.



No, it's not a bug, it's a significant change in behaviour.

It would have made sense to put that into changelog.Debian
for people running testing/unstable and using apt-listchanges.

NEWS.Debian is for the rare cases of serious incompatible
changes in a package.



Well, it is for less serious cases, quoting the developer's reference
"This is the preferred means to let the user know about significant
changes in a package."

NEWS.Debian is not for listing all bugs that were present
for a month in unstable and then fixed - that is what
changelog.Debian is for.



Upstream already makes that distinction: bugs are listed here [0] and
unusual changes in behaviour are listed here [1]. As I said, this is
not a bug. Of course, the differences between what constitutes a bug
and a feature are very personal ;-)

[0] http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/W...2-03-01.29
[1] http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/UpgradeNotes

It is completely pointless that people upgrading from 1.6.4-1
in squeeze will see this entry.



On the other hand, people upgrading from 2.1 wheezy will see it and
they may want to know about it.

Cheers,
Javi

Please remove this entry from NEWS.Debian.

Thanks in advance











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