Is the <releases/> tag really required?

[elvisangelaccio]

From the spec:

⁠2.1.3. XML Specification
The XML for a generic component definition starts with a tag as the root element. The element must at least have an id, name and releases tag

but appstreamcli validate does not complain if the releases tag is missing. In fact, the tag is not used at all in KDE applications. Bug in the spec or bug in the validator?

[hughsie]

Quite a few XFCE and GNOME apps use releases in the AppData, and for packaging formats like flatpak it's the only way we can get any kind of release notes.

[ximion]

@elvisangelaccio This is actually a typo, the component must have an id, name and summary tag to be valid. I'll fix this tomorrow (and I should really invest a bit of time at some point to read the full specification again, to check for consistency - a lot of bits have changed in the past).
Regardless though, as @hughsie said, a releases tag is a useful thing if it is kept up to date, so you might as well add one :-)