Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:31:56 -0800
> 
> >>>>> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > It is IMO a grave mistake to remove parts of our development process just
> > because they need to be learned by new contributors. The result will be
> > increased burden on the shoulders of those who review the submissions, due
> > to the need to coach them, catch their mistakes, ask for re-submissions,
> > etc. It will eventually be a net loss, because those contributors will not
> > enjoy the need to produce several versions of the patch before it is
> > admitted, and the reviewers will not enjoy the extra burden.
> 
> I agree with you, Eli. The question: What is the role of _ChangeLog_ in this.
> Most other projects don't have them, and I don't hear them complaining.

I disagree with this assessment.  I've just provided a list of
prominent GNU projects that do have them, _as_files_in_the_repo_.  The
list of GNU projects that don't have them in the repo, but do adhere
to the ChangeLog format, is much longer.

> So what is the exact merit of the format, and why should we continue
> to require it in spite of its costs?

I think I just answered that in my other mails in this thread.

As for the costs, I think they are negligible, certainly much smaller
than what we had to pay for this experiment during the year since we
decided to try.  And some of the fallout is not yet solved, and we
don't even have a clear idea how to solve it, nor motivation to do
that.