[Development] Change file process & improvement proposal

[Kai Koehne]

Looks like this discussion got stuck before reaching a conclusion ...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Development [mailto:development-bounces+kai.koehne=qt.io at qt-
> project.org] On Behalf Of Oswald Buddenhagen
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2016 3:23 PM
> To: development at qt-project.org; releasing at qt-project.org
> Subject: Re: [Development] Change file process & improvement proposal
> [...]
> > 1) Let's enable [ChangeLog] -tag by default in commit template. After
> > that you must remove/comment out it by purpose if you don't want add
> > it.
> >
> i really don't think this will make a positive difference. the problem is that
> many people just don't have the right audience-oriented mindset.
> we *already* have lots of garbage changelog entries, and this will just
> worsen the S/N ratio.

Actually looking through the commit logs e.g. in qtbase, I do think most [ChangeLog] entries are rather fine - surely some tweaking is sometimes necessary, but the quality of the ChangeLog entries we have is not all that bad.

What is obvious though is that a lot of commits where I would have expected a [ChangeLog] do not have one. What's more, a well written [ChangeLog] entry will help also during the review, and can serve as a sanity check when it comes to the right branch being targeted etc.

I therefore agree with Janne that we should encourage people to write them, and changing the default template is a very easy thing to do.

> > And in addition to this update sanity bot so that it will give '-1' if
> > change log entry isn't given in release branch.
> >
> this is probably not sensible. most last-minute fixes relate to recently
> introduced problems, which means that they specifically *don't* need
> changelog entries.

That might be the case until the first .0 release from the branch is done, but surely not afterwards.

Proposal: Check for [ChangeLog] entries in a 5.x branch _after 5.x.0 branched_. Is that easy to enable/disable?

> here's what i think would actually make a difference (based on historical
> evidence within trolltech):
> https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTQAINFRA-933

Such a tool/infrastructure would be cool to have, indeed. It requires a lot more investment though than the incremental changes Jani proposed. 

I therefore suggest to implement Jani's suggestions for the time being. If we find out they're not effective, we can always come back and look into alternative processes.

1. Enable [ChangeLog] tag in commit template

https://codereview.qt-project.org/183244

2. Add check in sanity bot to check for missing ChangeLog entries (potentially only in 5.x branches after 5.x.0 is out)

(who could do this?)

Regards

Kai