Re: Emacs 28.2 released

[Karl Fogel]

On 14 Sep 2022, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> But we don't have any release notes for bugfix releases.  We 
> don't
> track bugs that we fix in such releases, and don't record them
> anywhere except in Git logs.  We certainly don't record them in 
> NEWS,
> which is why what Stefan did misses your point.

We have an entry in NEWS for 28.2.

That entry has a substantive item about an installation change. 
There are also a couple of items listed under "Changes in 
Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 28.2" (although one of 
them says that the change was actually released in 28.1 and that 
we just forgot to include it in the release notes then).

> > So my suggestion is that release announcement emails always 
> > include a direct link to the release notes for that release, 
> > for 
> > the reasons given above.  And specifically, that we stick to 
> > this 
> > policy even for minor or bugfix releases.
>
> For that to be possible, we should first have some record of the 
> bugs
> we fixed explained in a language that would be understandable to 
> users
> (as opposed to Emacs developers).  Such a record will most 
> probably
> mention only some of the bugfixes, since many of them are minor 
> and
> others don't tell anything to users.  So let's first discuss 
> whether
> we want such a record, and if we do, how this could be possible 
> in
> practice.  Until we have such a record, talking about publishing 
> it in
> a release announcement is meaningless.

While that would certainly make better release notes, I can't say 
whether it's worth the effort, and anyway it's not required here. 
Even without us keeping such a record, the so-called "more subtle" 
point in my previous message still holds:

People who land on the 28.2 notes can easily find their way from 
there to the previous notes, and so on.  Since we don't know the 
version of Emacs the reader might be contemplating upgrading from, 
by linking from the announcement email to the corresponding recent 
release notes, we put the reader at a starting point from which 
they can easily trace back as far as they need to go to make their 
decision.

In other words, *even* if all we do for a minor release is put an 
entry into NEWS that says...

> * Changes in Emacs X.Y
>
> This is a bug-fix release with no new features.

...and then we point to that (in whatever form it lives on the 
web), we are still helping the reader start their informational 
journey.

This also simplifies the release process a tiny bit, because it's 
an unconditional policy.  The email template would always have a 
slot for that link, and that link would always has a place to 
point to.

Best regards,
-Karl