[Mageia-discuss] Unhelpful update changelogs

Wed Jan 4 19:12:49 CET 2012

2012/1/4 Claire Robinson <eeeemail at gmail.com>:
+> On 04/01/12 17:04, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
+>>
+>>
+>> Hello,
+>>
+>> Not sure I'm missing something, but when there's a software upgrade
+>> available (either in rpmdrake, or in the update manager), say today's
+>> Pidgin:
+>>
+>>         Version : 2.10.1-1.mga1
+>>         Version actuellement installée : 2.10.0-1.1.mga1
+>>
+>> the changelog doesn't display specifically the changes for that update:
+>>
+>>        * dim. 11 déc. 2011 13:00:00 CET fwang<fwang>  2.10.1-1.mga1
+>>
+>>         + Revision: 180554
+>>         - new version 2.10.1
+>>           fix CVE-2011-3594: UTF-8 validating incoming messages before
+>>          passing them to glib or libpurple Fix a memory leak when
+>>          admitting UTF-8 text with a non-UTF-8 primary encoding Fix
+>>          crashes and memory leaks when receiving malformed voice and
+>>          video requests
+>>           + dmorgan<dmorgan>
+>>             - New version 2.10.0
+>>
+>>         * mar. 29 mars 2011 14:00:00 CEST dams<dams>  2.7.11-1.mga1
+>>         [etc.]
+>>
+>> How am I supposed to know what changed between 2.10.0-1.1.mga1 (the
+>> installed version) and 2.10.1-1.mga1 (the proposed upgrade)? This
+>> happens with many/most packages, btw, not just Pidgin.
+>>
+>> (would be useful, wouldn't it ? :-))
+>>
+>> Thanks
+>>
+>> Antoine.
+>>
+>>
+>
+> There is a more detailed advisory written for each update but it currently
+> isn't shown in MageiaUpdate.
+>
+> You can subscribe to the Updates Announce mailing list
+
+This is surely an option for the experienced user, as are the other
+options you show.
+
+But what about the average (even unexperienced or new) users? You
+would not suggest to them to join a mailing list to be able to know
+what an update of a package will change in his system? Imagine the
+poor guy, getting 20+ packages for update and now trying to find them
+one by one in the mailing list. This way you educate them to stop
+caring about changes, just do the update.
+
+OTOH if the updates are displayed by the update system in order by
+their reason for update (security first, then bug fix, then version
+upgrade (which we seldomly do)) and a click on the package reveils the
+details, you will educate them to become curious and interested -
+can't remember which distro I saw that, maybe suse or ubuntu.
+
+I know that this means work, it's a reasonable suggestion nevertheless.
+
+-- 
+wobo
+