[Docs] Changelog doesn't call out breaking changes, no summary, fix/feat distinction muddled

[corneliusroemer]

Describe the enhancement requested

It seems that the release notes changelog doesn't call out breaking changes at all - were there really none for v25.0.0? That'd be surprising given it's a major version.

See https://arrow.apache.org/release/25.0.0.html

In addition, the current distinction of commits into a) Fixes and b) Features seems muddled in practice.

Examples of things classified as features but sounds like fix/chore (semver minor)

• Avoid int64 overflow in CheckReadRangeOrThrow (#50060l)
• Enable auto GitHub Copilot review ([Python] s2n_init() failed: 469762137 (FIPS mode is not supported for the libcrypto) #50630

At least for major versions it would be nice to have a summary of the major changes (major features, breaking changes). this exists: Summary: https://arrow.apache.org/blog/2026/07/10/25.0.0-release/ but should be linked to from the changelog

Component(s)

Documentation

[corneliusroemer]

I just noticed that there are curated release notes for v25, just that they are not linked at all in neither the machine generated release notes themselves nor in the GitHub release.

Curated release notes: https://arrow.apache.org/blog/2026/07/10/25.0.0-release/

It would be good to link to the summary from the generated ones linked above.

[rok]

It seems that the release notes changelog doesn't call out breaking changes at all - were there really none for v25.0.0? That'd be surprising given it's a major version.

Major versions of Arrow are released quarterly and don't necessarily include breaking changes.

I just noticed that there are curated release notes for v25, just that they are not linked at all in neither the machine generated release notes themselves nor in the GitHub release.

We include the changelog in the ML announcement however given this discussion they might be hard to discover. Could you propose where else could we link these so they'd be easier to find?