[Releasing] [Development] Change file process & improvement proposal

[Robin Burchell]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017, at 01:28 PM, Kai Koehne wrote:
> Anyway, this all feels like we get side-tracked in details. To reiterate:
> 
> - We do (still) have a problem with our ChangeLog files
>   * The quality of the entries, and the scope, greatly differs (between
>   modules)
>   * We do have a problem getting them in place on time for a release

Agreed. In the past, I've had to spend far too much time in "git log"
digging up extra changes that should have been mentioned, but weren't.

> Jani's proposal is to fix parts of this is to encourage committers and
> reviewers to write [ChangeLog] entries as part of the commit. This could
> be encouraged by
> * Enabling the [ChangeLog] line by default in the commit template

This seems reasonable, provided there's some guidance about how to use
it properly.

> * Enforcing a [ChangeLog] entry by the Sanity Bot (under conditions xxx)

Sounds good, although I'd suggest that starting off with a slightly
softer mallet might be a good idea, at least as an initial transitional
step. Maybe making it complain about a lack of ChangeLog tag, but not -1
the change, to start encouraging better habits before they are later
enforced. Thinking primarily here about existing pushed, but not merged
changes. I don't have hard feelings about this, though.

For "under conditions xxx", I'd just apply it to everything. Less
difficult to get wrong, and more consistent :)

-- 
  Robin Burchell
  robin at crimson.no