outdated changelog file

[keikoro]

It looks to me like CHANGELOG.md, which is linked to from the README, is missing updates found in the release log.

I'm wondering if there are ways to have the file automatically be updated once a new release is published – not sure if there are any bots which can do that –, or if it would make sense to remove the file otherwise. (The thinking being it'd be better not to have the file at all rather than it being misleading if it gets overlooked on a more regular basis.)

[Yash-Singh1]

Yes, I agree, we should either:

1. create a workflow that updates the changelog on release
2. remove it all together

@knsv, what do you think we should do here?

[wolfspyre]

if you're looking for prior art: I've always been fond of this: https://github.com/linux-test-project/ltp/releases <https://github.com/linux-test-project/ltp/releases> most especially: ``` CREDITS Many thanks to the people contributing to this release: git shortlog -s -e -n 20210927.. 51 Petr Vorel ***@***.***> 47 Yang Xu ***@***.***> 31 Richard Palethorpe ***@***.***> 24 Joerg Vehlow ***@***.***> 17 Cyril Hrubis ***@***.***> 15 Andrea Cervesato ***@***.***> 14 tangmeng ***@***.***> 9 Gabriel Krisman Bertazi ***@***.***> 7 zhanglianjie ***@***.***> 6 Dai Shili ***@***.***> 6 Li Wang ***@***.***> 6 Martin Doucha ***@***.***> 4 Jan Stancek ***@***.***> 3 Alex Henrie ***@***.***> 3 Matthew Bobrowski ***@***.***> 3 Zhao Gongyi ***@***.***> 3 sujiaxun ***@***.***> 2 Krzysztof Kozlowski ***@***.***> 2 QI Fuli ***@***.***> 2 Ralph Siemsen ***@***.***> 2 YiLin.Li ***@***.***> 2 wenyehai ***@***.***> 1 Bogdan Lezhepekov ***@***.***> 1 Egor Petrov ***@***.***> 1 Fabian Vogt ***@***.***> 1 Fabrice Fontaine ***@***.***> 1 Masayoshi Mizuma ***@***.***> 1 Nikita Yushchenko ***@***.***> 1 Thadeu Lima de Souza Cascardo ***@***.***> 1 Wang Kunfeng ***@***.***> 1 chengweibin ***@***.***> 1 sujiauxn ***@***.***> And also thanks to patch reviewers: git log 20210927.. | grep -Ei '(reviewed|acked)-by:' | sed 's/.*by: //' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n -r 154 Cyril Hrubis ***@***.***> 71 Petr Vorel ***@***.***> 29 Li Wang ***@***.***> 24 Richard Palethorpe ***@***.***> 12 Amir Goldstein ***@***.***> 11 Yang Xu ***@***.***> 9 Martin Doucha ***@***.***> 3 Tim Bird ***@***.***> 3 Matthew Bobrowski ***@***.***> 3 Jan Stancek ***@***.***> 3 Eric Biggers ***@***.***> 3 Alexey Kodanev ***@***.***> 2 Liu Xinpeng ***@***.***> 2 Andrea Cervesato ***@***.***> 1 Petr Vorel ***@***.***> 1 Mimi Zohar < ***@***.***> ``` Wolf Noble Hoof & Paw ***@***.*** [= The contents of this message have been written, read, processed, erased, sorted, sniffed, compressed, rewritten, misspelled, overcompensated, lost, found, and most importantly delivered entirely with recycled electrons =]

…

On May 10, 2022, at 8:59 PM, Yash Singh ***@***.***> wrote: Yes, I agree, we should: create a workflow that updates the changelog on release remove it all together @knsv <https://github.com/knsv>, what do you think we should do here? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3022 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAM2KE53JG77GOBIHFWWTPTVJMIAJANCNFSM5VPD2LEQ>. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

[keikoro]

I appreciate the thought but personally wouldn't want to have my Git author name and email address listed in a Changelog, tbh.

Addendum, I'm aware this is essentially publicly available (meta) data but the explicit surfacing via project docs would make me think twice about contributing to a project. GitHub user names can already be a pain but full name + email address goes a level beyond that, IMO. It's also not without reason that users can e.g. use different email addresses for different purposes on platforms like GitHub.

[knsv]

@Yash-Singh1 I think we should remove it unless we find a way to manage it
@keikoro also have a good point.

[weedySeaDragon]

There are tools that update changelogs and release notes that do not include emails (which I agree -- is not a good idea).
There are a number of GitHub actions devoted to doing exactly this. Some allow you to configure exactly what information is/is not included (e.g. by using tags/placeholders/interpolations).

Here's the most popular one currently on GitHub:
https://github.com/marketplace/actions/release-changelog-builder

All automated tools are going to require some sort of standardization; most (if not all) work off of PRs, so PRs have to be standardized. That's a small price to pay IMHO.