Re: request for your comments on release documentation

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:49:21 -0500, Hiroki Sato <hrs_at_freebsd.org> wrote:

>  So, my questions are:
> 1. What do you think about current granularity of the relnotes items?
>     Too detailed, good, or too rough?  Currently, judgment of what is
>     included or not is based on user-visible, new functionality, or
>     performance improvement.  Applicable changes are included as
>     relnotes items even if the changes are small,

As a sysadmin I live and die by the granularity of release notes. If they  
weren't granular I'd end up having to read the commit logs and try to  
parse out changes myself. Sometimes changes aren't going to be obvious if  
you weren't aware of discussions on the -hackers, -current, or -stable  
lists.

> 2. Do you want technical details?  For example, just "disk access
>     performance was improved by 50%" or "Feature A has been added.
>     This changes the old behavior because ..., and as a result, it
>     improves disk access performance by 50%".

I'm sure if you're too terse like in your first example people will jump  
to conclusions and be angry when disk performance isn't improved 50% in  
every possible situation, as well as the project receiving bad press for  
being too deceiving. If you want to be terse perhaps "Disk access  
improvements" is sufficient, and use the second example if you want to be  
more explicit.

> 3. Is there missing information which should be in the relnotes?
>     Probably there are some missing items for each release, but this
>     question is one at some abstraction level.  Link to commit log and
>     diff, detailed description of major incompatible changes, and so
>     on.

I try to keep up with the development and changes in releases as best I  
can and I haven't noticed any glaring omissions over the last several  
releases. I think you're doing a fine job.

Also, is there a reason this isn't a "living" document that can be updated  
as things get MFC'd to STABLE? It would help take load off your end and  
maybe speed up release once the freeze has happened and we begin the final  
grind through release candidates.